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-RUSSELLVILLE-AR · Russellville, AR 29,057 pop · income 17th pct · 17 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 Russellville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Russellville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Jacksonville · lowest
46,947
Jacksonville · lowest
46,947 median HH income
35.9% of the leader · rank #1
Hathaway Pines · near
48,705
Hathaway Pines · near
48,705 median HH income
37.2% of the leader · rank #2
Clyde · near
48,705
Clyde · near
48,705 median HH income
37.2% of the leader · rank #3
Toccoa · near
48,706
Toccoa · near
48,706 median HH income
37.2% of the leader · rank #4
Russellville · this city
48,708
Russellville · this city
48,708 median HH income
37.2% of the leader · rank #5
August · near
48,708
August · near
48,708 median HH income
37.2% of the leader · rank #6
Sachse · highest
130,839
Sachse · highest
130,839 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 Russellville 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: 29,057.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Russellville - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Russellville places in the 17th percentile for household income and the 39th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
17th
percentile, household income
32nd
percentile, home value
3rd
percentile, median rent
39th
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: Russellville, AR
29,057 people live in Russellville, Arkansas - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Russellville report a median income of $48,708 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 15.2%. Home values in Russellville run a median of $166,500, and the median resident age is 30.4 years. Educational attainment runs 29.9% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 57.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 30 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 64% from five years earlier. Russellville reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1734.1 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Russellville's yearly average temperature at 61.4°F with 46.4 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in Arkansas run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Arkansas scores 86.9 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $944 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $210 across Arkansas, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. 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 Russellville'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 schools and households to housing and income to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to climate and hazard context to population change to reported crime to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Russellville, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, matched public-school count, annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Russellville?
The NCES join finds 9 public schools within the city match. 29.9% 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.
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.
How far does income reach against housing in Russellville?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Russellville?
Within Arkansas, the closest population matches are Jacksonville (29,285 residents, $46,947 income); Texarkana (29,343 residents, $47,930 income); Paragould (29,940 residents, $56,181 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are East Lake-Orient Park, FL (29,064 residents); Sachse, TX (29,075 residents); Easton, PA (29,079 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.
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.
What can 17 Census tracts reveal inside Russellville?
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.
PlainCities matches 17 Census tracts to this city.
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 Russellville?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 76.3%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.5%
Work from home
4.7%
Drive alone
76.3%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 13,186 workers age 16+.
What physical conditions frame life in Russellville?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 61.4°F, with 46.4 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Arkansas is 55.5 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
Mean temperature
61.4°F
Annual precipitation
46.4 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
55.5
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Russellville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +491 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 30 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+1.7%
2025 estimate
29,521
2020 estimate
29,030
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Russellville?
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.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1734.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 24% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1384.6
Violent rate
349.5
Total reported rate
1734.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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
29.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
350 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate F
15.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$48,708
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Russellville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 97/100 (A+) · 86.9 index
Bachelor's+ share: 58/100 (C) · 29.9%
Violent crime: 26/100 (F) · 350 /100k
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.2%
Household income: 19/100 (F) · $48,708
Where Russellville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Russellville'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 - Russellville highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Russellville, AR (this city): home $166,500, crime 1,734/100k
Sachse, TX : home $366,100, crime 810/100k
Easton, PA : home $169,200, crime 1,387/100k
Independence, KY : home $240,500, crime 343/100k
Jacksonville, AR : home $155,300, crime 4,911/100k
Texarkana, AR : home $162,700, crime 4,398/100k
Paragould, AR : home $175,400, crime 3,813/100k
Bella Vista, AR : home $262,400, crime 691/100k
Cabot, AR : home $197,000, crime 1,668/100k
Sherwood, AR : home $190,900, crime 2,571/100k
How does Russellville compare to other US cities?
Russellville measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income17% higher than other cities
Home value32% pricier than other cities
Median rent3% pricier than other cities
Safety39% 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, Russellville ranks #82 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 Russellville 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 Russellville near the bottom of Arkansas's cities
Among the 524 Arkansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Russellville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Russellville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#242 of 495
51st percentile in Arkansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 524
0th percentile in Arkansas
Median Home Value
#98 of 482
79th percentile in Arkansas
Poverty Rate
#220 of 524
58th percentile in Arkansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#50 of 524
90th 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
17th percentile nationally for median household income · 39th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Russellville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Russellville'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 Russellville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$166,500Among the most affordablemore affordable than 68% 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
Russellville's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,647 of 15,516
More affordable than 44% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,416 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.4×, Russellville sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,647 of 15,516 and #1,416 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$48,708Russellville, AR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Russellville, 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 Russellville, AR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)29.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.2%
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
29,057
Median Income
$48,708
Median Home Value
$166,500
Median Age
30.4
Poverty Rate
15.2%
Labor force participation
57.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
29.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1734.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
349.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1384.6
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
61.4°F
Annual Precipitation
46.4"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Russellville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
29,030 residents
2021
29,068 residents
2022
29,173 residents
2023
29,484 residents
2024
29,407 residents
2025
29,521 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
30
housing units authorized
Single-Family
26
detached homes
Multifamily
4
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
83
59
24
$7.0M
2020
76
50
26
$7.4M
2021
67
45
22
$5.7M
2022
43
39
4
$6.7M
2023
42
24
18
$5.3M
2024
30
26
4
$5.8M
Permit volume decreased 64% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
76.3%
Carpool
13.9%
Public Transit
0.5%
Walk
3.5%
Work from Home
4.7%
Other
1.1%
Based on 13,186 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 Russellville. 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 Russellville 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 Russellville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Russellville 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, NOAA Climate Normals, 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.