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Place dossier plate
SheetAR-FORT-SMITH-AR · Fort Smith, AR 89,496 pop · income 24th pct · 31 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 Fort Smith
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Fort Smith on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Trenton · lowest
47,102
Trenton · lowest
47,102 median HH income
47.6% of the leader · rank #1
Rainbow Park · near
52,685
Rainbow Park · near
52,685 median HH income
53.2% of the leader · rank #2
Oil City · near
52,688
Oil City · near
52,688 median HH income
53.2% of the leader · rank #3
Fort Smith · this city
52,692
Fort Smith · this city
52,692 median HH income
53.2% of the leader · rank #4
Miller · near
52,695
Miller · near
52,695 median HH income
53.2% of the leader · rank #5
Mount Morris · near
52,697
Mount Morris · near
52,697 median HH income
53.2% of the leader · rank #6
Clifton · highest
99,003
Clifton · highest
99,003 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 Fort Smith 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: 89,496.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Fort Smith - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Fort Smith places in the 24th percentile for household income and the 5th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
24th
percentile, household income
33rd
percentile, home value
3rd
percentile, median rent
5th
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: Fort Smith, AR
Arkansas's Fort Smith is a small city, with 89,496 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Fort Smith brings in $52,692 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 13.2%. Home values in Fort Smith run a median of $168,100, and the median resident age is 36.6 years. 25.3% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 57.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 253 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Slowing), down 22% from five years earlier. Fort Smith's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 4526.7 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. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $944 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Arkansas's average monthly utility costs around $210 (state average). Commute times here average 16.0 minutes, with 77.8% driving alone and 7.4% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 55.5 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Fort Smith'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 within-city variation to housing and income to schools and households to work and mobility to reported crime to population change to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Fort Smith, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can 31 Census tracts reveal inside Fort Smith?
PlainCities matches 31 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Fort Smith?
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 3.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 13.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What does the education layer cover for Fort Smith?
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 28 public schools within the city match. 25.3% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Fort Smith?
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 Springdale (87,388 residents, $66,044 income); Fayetteville (97,227 residents, $59,074 income); Jonesboro (79,187 residents, $52,559 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Clifton, NJ (89,247 residents); Merced, CA (89,766 residents); Trenton, NJ (89,966 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.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Fort Smith?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 77.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 16.0 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
77.8%
Work from home
7.4%
Public transit
0.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 40,203 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Fort Smith?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 4526.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 98% 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.
Total reported rate
4526.7
Violent rate
842.4
Property rate
3684.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Fort Smith growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,699 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 253 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 upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
2020 estimate
89,156
2025 estimate
90,855
Period change
+1.9%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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 C-
25.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
13.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$52,692
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
842 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Fort Smith profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 97/100 (A+) · 86.9 index
Bachelor's+ share: 50/100 (C-) · 25.3%
Poverty rate: 27/100 (F) · 13.2%
Household income: 24/100 (F) · $52,692
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 842 /100k
Where Fort Smith sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Fort Smith'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 - Fort Smith highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Fort Smith, AR (this city): home $168,100, crime 4,527/100k
Clifton, NJ : home $444,300, crime 2,431/100k
Merced, CA : home $347,700, crime 3,577/100k
Trenton, NJ : home $122,500, crime 3,315/100k
Waukegan, IL : home $177,600, crime 2,060/100k
Westminster, CA : home $820,000, crime 2,934/100k
Bloomington, MN : home $346,200, crime 3,776/100k
Springdale, AR : home $237,200, crime 2,412/100k
Fayetteville, AR : home $322,500, crime 2,795/100k
Jonesboro, AR : home $213,400, crime 3,765/100k
Rogers, AR : home $278,000, crime 1,616/100k
Conway, AR : home $234,600, crime 2,571/100k
North Little Rock, AR : home $169,500, crime 5,493/100k
How does Fort Smith compare to other US cities?
Where Fort Smith sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income24% higher than other cities
Home value33% pricier than other cities
Median rent3% pricier than other cities
Safety5% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Arkansas and the picture shifts: Fort Smith ranks #148 of 160 Arkansas cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Fort Smith 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 Fort Smith near the bottom of Arkansas's cities
Among the 524 Arkansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Fort Smith ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Fort Smith only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#200 of 495
60th percentile in Arkansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 524
0th percentile in Arkansas
Median Home Value
#97 of 482
80th percentile in Arkansas
Poverty Rate
#257 of 524
51st percentile in Arkansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#79 of 524
85th 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
24th percentile nationally for median household income · 5th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Fort Smith's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Fort Smith'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 Fort Smith's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$168,100Among the most affordablemore affordable than 67% 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
Fort Smith's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,643 of 15,516
More affordable than 51% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#148 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 3.2×, Fort Smith sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,643 of 15,516 and #148 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
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
$52,692Fort Smith, AR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Fort Smith, 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 Fort Smith, AR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)13.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
89,496
Median Income
$52,692
Median Home Value
$168,100
Median Age
36.6
Poverty Rate
13.2%
Labor force participation
57.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
4526.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
842.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3684.3
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
28
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Fort Smith's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
89,156 residents
2021
89,417 residents
2022
90,134 residents
2023
89,791 residents
2024
90,742 residents
2025
90,855 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
253
housing units authorized
Single-Family
149
detached homes
Multifamily
104
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
326
166
160
$64.7M
2020
313
135
178
$55.8M
2021
325
191
134
$47.6M
2022
241
154
87
$49.9M
2023
350
192
158
$74.2M
2024
253
149
104
$57.5M
Permit volume decreased 22% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
16.0 minutes
Drive Alone
77.8%
Carpool
11.0%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
7.4%
Other
2.1%
Based on 40,203 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 Fort Smith. 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 Fort Smith 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 Fort Smith sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Fort Smith 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.