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Place dossier plate
SheetAR-STAR-CITY-AR · Star City, AR 2,234 pop · income 23rd pct · 4 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 Star City
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Star City on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Melbourne · lowest
34,303
Melbourne · lowest
34,303 median HH income
21.9% of the leader · rank #1
Munhall · near
52,037
Munhall · near
52,037 median HH income
33.3% of the leader · rank #2
Star City · this city
52,039
Star City · this city
52,039 median HH income
33.3% of the leader · rank #3
Crothersville · near
52,039
Crothersville · near
52,039 median HH income
33.3% of the leader · rank #4
Ware · near
52,039
Ware · near
52,039 median HH income
33.3% of the leader · rank #5
Atlas · near
52,042
Atlas · near
52,042 median HH income
33.3% of the leader · rank #6
Camanche · highest
156,480
Camanche · highest
156,480 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 Star City 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: 2,234.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Star City - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Star City lands in the 23rd percentile for household income and the 19th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
23rd
percentile, household income
17th
percentile, home value
3rd
percentile, median rent
19th
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: Star City, AR
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 2,234 residents in Star City, a small town within Arkansas. The typical household in Star City brings in $52,039 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 12.8%. Home values in Star City run a median of $118,500, and the median resident age is 35.1 years. About 19.5% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 56.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 4 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 300% from five years earlier. Star City's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 2753.6 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Arkansas run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Arkansas at 86.9 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $944 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $210 across Arkansas, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. 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 Star City'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 comparison shortlist to work and mobility to population change to within-city variation to reported crime to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Star City, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Star City?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 19.5% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Star City?
Within Arkansas, the closest population matches are Marked Tree (2,235 residents, $45,197 income); Melbourne (2,227 residents, $34,303 income); Fairfield Bay (2,247 residents, $54,735 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cumberland, KY (2,234 residents); Newtown, PA (2,234 residents); Camanche, CA (2,233 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 does the journey to work look like in Star City?
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 81.7%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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.
Population change
Is Star City growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -98 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -4.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 4 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
-4.5%
2025 estimate
2,059
2020 estimate
2,157
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Star City?
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 2753.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 21% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1787.4
Violent rate
966.2
Total reported rate
2753.6
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Star City?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 12.8%, 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. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
Household income
$52,039
Home value
$118,500
Value / income
2.3×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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
19.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
12.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$52,039
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
966 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Star City profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 97/100 (A+) · 86.9 index
Bachelor's+ share: 33/100 (F) · 19.5%
Poverty rate: 29/100 (F) · 12.8%
Household income: 23/100 (F) · $52,039
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 966 /100k
Where Star City sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Star City'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 - Star City highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Star City, AR (this city): home $118,500, crime 2,754/100k
Cumberland, KY : home $61,600, crime 505/100k
Newtown, PA : home $721,700, crime 355/100k
Kellogg, ID : home $217,200, crime 802/100k
Marked Tree, AR : home $85,700, crime 1,332/100k
Fairfield Bay, AR : home $157,300, crime 1,602/100k
Gassville, AR : home $126,600, crime 1,428/100k
Eureka Springs, AR : home $246,900, crime 2,135/100k
How does Star City compare to other US cities?
Star City measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income23% higher than other cities
Home value17% pricier than other cities
Median rent3% pricier than other cities
Safety19% 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: Star City ranks #122 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 Star City 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 Star City near the bottom of Arkansas's cities
Among the 524 Arkansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Star City ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Star City only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#204 of 495
59th percentile in Arkansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 524
0th percentile in Arkansas
Median Home Value
#206 of 482
57th percentile in Arkansas
Poverty Rate
#262 of 524
50th percentile in Arkansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#138 of 524
73rd 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
23rd percentile nationally for median household income · 19th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Star City's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Star City'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 Star City's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$118,500Among the most affordablemore affordable than 83% 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
Star City's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#2,836 of 15,516
More affordable than 82% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,626 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.3×, Star City sits in the affordable band:
national rank #2,836 of 15,516 and #2,626 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$52,039Star City, AR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Star City, 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 Star City, AR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)19.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)12.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)56.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
2,234
Median Income
$52,039
Median Home Value
$118,500
Median Age
35.1
Poverty Rate
12.8%
Labor force participation
56.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
19.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2753.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
966.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1787.4
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
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Star City's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
2,157 residents
2021
2,190 residents
2022
2,117 residents
2023
2,081 residents
2024
2,068 residents
2025
2,059 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
4
housing units authorized
Single-Family
4
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1
1
0
$0.1M
2020
5
5
0
$0.9M
2021
2
2
0
$0.8M
2022
4
4
0
$0.9M
2023
3
3
0
$0.9M
2024
4
4
0
$1.1M
Permit volume increased 300% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
81.7%
Carpool
14.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.4%
Work from Home
3.5%
Based on 927 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 Star City. 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 Star City 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 Star City sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Star City 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.