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Place dossier plate
SheetAZ-FLAGSTAFF-AZ · Flagstaff, AZ 76,333 pop · income 47th pct · 39 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 Flagstaff
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Flagstaff on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Scranton · lowest
49,531
Scranton · lowest
49,531 median HH income
36.8% of the leader · rank #1
Clay City · near
68,036
Clay City · near
68,036 median HH income
50.5% of the leader · rank #2
Flagstaff · this city
68,041
Flagstaff · this city
68,041 median HH income
50.5% of the leader · rank #3
Foothill Farms · near
68,042
Foothill Farms · near
68,042 median HH income
50.5% of the leader · rank #4
Forreston · near
68,042
Forreston · near
68,042 median HH income
50.5% of the leader · rank #5
Parker · near
68,043
Parker · near
68,043 median HH income
50.5% of the leader · rank #6
Queen Creek · highest
134,719
Queen Creek · highest
134,719 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 Flagstaff 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: 76,333.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Flagstaff - the verdict
Nationally, Flagstaff sits in the 47th percentile for household income and the 19th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
47th
percentile, household income
85th
percentile, home value
64th
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: Flagstaff, AZ
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 76,333 residents in Flagstaff, a small city within Arizona. Median household income here is $68,041 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 9.5%. Flagstaff's housing stock carries a median value of $503,400, and the median resident age is 26.0 years. 51.8% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 562 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Growing), up 19% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 2695.2 incidents per 100,000 residents, near the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Flagstaff's yearly average temperature at 44.7°F with 22.5 inches of precipitation per year and 65.3 inches of snowfall.
Arizona tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Arizona scores 100.7 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,419 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $215 across Arizona, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Flagstaff report an average commute of 13.9 minutes, with 62.6% driving alone and 12.0% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 84.5 out of 100 (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Flagstaff'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 reported crime to work and mobility to climate and hazard context to within-city variation to population change to housing and income to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Flagstaff, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, annual population history, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Flagstaff?
Within Arizona, the closest population matches are Casas Adobes (70,770 residents, $81,041 income); Queen Creek (66,369 residents, $134,719 income); Maricopa (62,986 residents, $94,208 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cheektowaga, NY (76,251 residents); Arlington Heights, IL (76,220 residents); Doral, FL (76,490 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 the FBI record say about safety in Flagstaff?
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 2695.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 18% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
What does the journey to work look like in Flagstaff?
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 62.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 13.9 minutes.
What can 39 Census tracts reveal inside Flagstaff?
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 39 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.
Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Flagstaff?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 44.7°F, with 22.5 inches of precipitation and 65.3 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Arizona is 84.5 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
44.7°F
Annual precipitation
22.5 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
84.5
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Flagstaff growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +183 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 562 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
+0.2%
2025 estimate
77,260
2020 estimate
77,077
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Flagstaff?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 7.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.5%, 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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
Household income
$68,041
Home value
$503,400
Value / income
7.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the education layer cover for Flagstaff?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 51.8% 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.
Matched public schools
3
Bachelor's degree+
51.8%
Poverty estimate
9.5%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Below median income · poverty 9.5% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.7 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Arizona average
D
City profile score · Flagstaff, AZ
44/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
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.
Bachelor's+ share A
51.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income D
$68,041
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate D
9.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
100.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime F
463 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Flagstaff profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 85/100 (A) · 51.8%
Household income: 46/100 (D) · $68,041
Poverty rate: 42/100 (D) · 9.5%
Cost of living: 37/100 (F) · 100.7 index
Violent crime: 18/100 (F) · 463 /100k
Where Flagstaff sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Flagstaff'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 - Flagstaff highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Flagstaff, AZ (this city): home $503,400, crime 2,695/100k
Arlington Heights, IL : home $403,200, crime 930/100k
Evanston, IL : home $472,300, crime 2,884/100k
Rochester Hills, MI : home $377,400, crime 624/100k
Scranton, PA : home $141,700, crime 1,627/100k
Queen Creek, AZ : home $576,600, crime 941/100k
Maricopa, AZ : home $338,600, crime 1,094/100k
Avondale, AZ : home $348,700, crime 2,611/100k
Lake Havasu City, AZ : home $411,500, crime 1,750/100k
Casa Grande, AZ : home $258,200, crime 1,939/100k
How does Flagstaff compare to other US cities?
Flagstaff measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income47% higher than other cities
Home value85% pricier than other cities
Median rent64% pricier than other cities
Safety19% 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 Arizona, Flagstaff ranks #46 of 61 Arizona 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 Flagstaff against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Arizona only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Arizona-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Flagstaff near the bottom of Arizona's cities
Among the 394 Arizona cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Flagstaff ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Flagstaff only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#109 of 333
67th percentile in Arizona
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 394
0th percentile in Arizona
Median Home Value
#24 of 327
93rd percentile in Arizona
Poverty Rate
#191 of 393
51st percentile in Arizona
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#24 of 394
94th percentile in Arizona
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 Arizona only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
47th percentile nationally for median household income · 19th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Flagstaff's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Flagstaff'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 Flagstaff's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$503,40015th percentilemore affordable than 15% 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
Flagstaff's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,849 of 15,516
More affordable than 4% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#670 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 7.4×, Flagstaff sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,849 of 15,516 and #670 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$68,041Flagstaff, AZ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Flagstaff, AZ median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Flagstaff, AZ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)51.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
76,333
Median Income
$68,041
Median Home Value
$503,400
Median Age
26.0
Poverty Rate
9.5%
Labor force participation
61.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
51.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2695.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
463.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2232.0
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
44.7°F
Annual Precipitation
22.5"
Annual Snowfall
65.3"
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
Flagstaff's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
77,077 residents
2021
74,745 residents
2022
75,887 residents
2023
76,649 residents
2024
77,305 residents
2025
77,260 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Growing
Total Permits (2024)
562
housing units authorized
Single-Family
190
detached homes
Multifamily
372
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
7.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
472
283
189
$69.7M
2020
588
280
308
$138.1M
2021
657
206
451
$136.8M
2022
460
129
331
$143.5M
2023
874
146
728
$179.4M
2024
562
190
372
$158.3M
Permit volume increased 19% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
13.9 minutes
Drive Alone
62.6%
Carpool
10.7%
Public Transit
2.4%
Walk
8.8%
Work from Home
12.0%
Other
3.5%
Based on 38,491 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Arizona statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $215
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Arizona at $215 (electricity about $131 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Arizona statewide averages, not a meter reading for Flagstaff. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Arizona's BEA cost-of-living index is 100.7 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Flagstaff is $1,419/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Arizona statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 84.5 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Arizona statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Flagstaff sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Flagstaff compares to similar-size Arizona 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.