Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetAR-EL-DORADO-AR · El Dorado, AR 17,382 pop · income 13th pct · 12 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around El Dorado
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest El Dorado on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Harrison · lowest
40,568
Harrison · lowest
40,568 median HH income
32.3% of the leader · rank #1
Rockland · near
45,156
Rockland · near
45,156 median HH income
36.0% of the leader · rank #2
Manton · near
45,158
Manton · near
45,158 median HH income
36.0% of the leader · rank #3
El Dorado · this city
45,159
El Dorado · this city
45,159 median HH income
36.0% of the leader · rank #4
Fairmount · near
45,163
Fairmount · near
45,163 median HH income
36.0% of the leader · rank #5
Rogue River · near
45,163
Rogue River · near
45,163 median HH income
36.0% of the leader · rank #6
Aurora · highest
125,567
Aurora · highest
125,567 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for El Dorado on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 17,382.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
El Dorado - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, El Dorado places in the 13th percentile for household income and the 4th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
13th
percentile, household income
14th
percentile, home value
3rd
percentile, median rent
4th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: El Dorado, AR
Arkansas's El Dorado is a small town, with 17,382 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in El Dorado brings in $45,159 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 20.2%. Home values in El Dorado run a median of $113,100, and the median resident age is 36.0 years. Educational attainment runs 17.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 53.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 13 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Rapid Growth), up 30% from five years earlier. El Dorado's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 4806.4 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, above the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Arkansas run below the national norm: the state registers 86.9 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $944 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Arkansas run around $210, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 14.2 minutes, with 81.6% driving alone and 9.4% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. Natural-hazard exposure scores 55.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of El Dorado's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income to within-city variation to population change to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For El Dorado, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for El Dorado?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within Arkansas, the closest population matches are Siloam Springs (18,096 residents, $65,725 income); Maumelle (19,286 residents, $92,466 income); Centerton (20,212 residents, $112,920 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Aurora, OH (17,386 residents); Rancho Mirage, CA (17,375 residents); South Venice, FL (17,399 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
What does the education layer cover for El Dorado?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 17.0% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
What can the FBI record say about safety in El Dorado?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 4806.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 111% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
What can 12 Census tracts reveal inside El Dorado?
PlainCities matches 12 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in El Dorado?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 20.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.5×
Home value
$113,100
Household income
$45,159
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is El Dorado growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -1,093 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -6.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 13 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
2020 estimate
17,702
2025 estimate
16,609
Period change
-6.2%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in El Dorado?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 81.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 14.2 minutes.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Drive alone
81.6%
Work from home
9.4%
Public transit
0.1%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 7,060 workers age 16+.
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Cost of living A+
86.9 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share F
17.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$45,159
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
20.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
1,319 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
El Dorado profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 97/100 (A+) · 86.9 index
Bachelor's+ share: 26/100 (F) · 17.0%
Household income: 14/100 (F) · $45,159
Poverty rate: 13/100 (F) · 20.2%
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,319 /100k
Where El Dorado sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
El Dorado's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - El Dorado highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
El Dorado, AR (this city): home $113,100, crime 4,806/100k
Aurora, OH : home $371,400, crime 397/100k
Rancho Mirage, CA : home $747,800, crime 2,581/100k
Royse City, TX : home $288,400, crime 1,002/100k
Richmond Hill, GA : home $272,100, crime 1,234/100k
New Castle, IN : home $95,100, crime 809/100k
Siloam Springs, AR : home $205,000, crime 1,851/100k
Maumelle, AR : home $276,900, crime 1,296/100k
Centerton, AR : home $295,500, crime 385/100k
Marion, AR : home $206,300, crime 2,871/100k
Bryant, AR : home $223,400, crime 2,233/100k
Harrison, AR : home $165,000, crime 2,107/100k
How does El Dorado compare to other US cities?
Here's how El Dorado stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income13% higher than other cities
Home value14% pricier than other cities
Median rent3% pricier than other cities
Safety4% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Arkansas, El Dorado ranks #151 of 160 Arkansas cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares El Dorado against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Arkansas only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Arkansas-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places El Dorado near the bottom of Arkansas's cities
Among the 524 Arkansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, El Dorado ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares El Dorado only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#277 of 495
44th percentile in Arkansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 524
0th percentile in Arkansas
Median Home Value
#226 of 482
53rd percentile in Arkansas
Poverty Rate
#139 of 524
73rd percentile in Arkansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#181 of 524
65th percentile in Arkansas
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Arkansas only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
13th percentile nationally for median household income · 4th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
El Dorado's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
El Dorado's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How El Dorado's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$113,100Among the most affordablemore affordable than 86% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
El Dorado's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,013 of 15,516
More affordable than 74% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#360 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.5×, El Dorado sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,013 of 15,516 and #360 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$45,159El Dorado, AR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context El Dorado, AR median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for El Dorado, AR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)17.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)20.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)53.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
17,382
Median Income
$45,159
Median Home Value
$113,100
Median Age
36.0
Poverty Rate
20.2%
Labor force participation
53.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
17.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
4806.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1319.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3487.3
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
El Dorado's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,702 residents
2021
17,334 residents
2022
17,098 residents
2023
16,881 residents
2024
16,725 residents
2025
16,609 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Rapid Growth
Total Permits (2024)
13
housing units authorized
Single-Family
13
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
10
10
0
$1.7M
2020
9
9
0
$1.6M
2021
12
12
0
$2.1M
2022
12
12
0
$2.1M
2023
13
13
0
$2.3M
2024
13
13
0
$2.3M
Permit volume increased 30% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
14.2 minutes
Drive Alone
81.6%
Carpool
6.1%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
1.9%
Work from Home
9.4%
Other
0.9%
Based on 7,060 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Arkansas statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $210
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Arkansas at $210 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Arkansas statewide averages, not a meter reading for El Dorado. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Arkansas's BEA cost-of-living index is 86.9 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around El Dorado is $944/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Arkansas statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 55.5 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Arkansas statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county El Dorado sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How El Dorado compares to similar-size Arkansas cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.