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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-ALAMEDA-CA · Alameda, CA 76,876 pop · income 91st pct
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 Alameda
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Alameda on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hammond · lowest
53,950
Hammond · lowest
53,950 median HH income
29.0% of the leader · rank #1
Chalfont · near
131,944
Chalfont · near
131,944 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #2
Shackle Island · near
131,944
Shackle Island · near
131,944 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #3
Sagamore · near
132,000
Sagamore · near
132,000 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #4
Alameda · this city
132,015
Alameda · this city
132,015 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #5
Hockinson · near
132,083
Hockinson · near
132,083 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #6
Pleasanton · highest
186,206
Pleasanton · highest
186,206 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 Alameda 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: 76,876.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Alameda - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Alameda lands in the 91st percentile for household income and the 3rd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
91st
percentile, household income
98th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
3rd
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: Alameda, CA
Alameda is a small city in California, home to 76,876 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Alameda households earn a median of $132,015 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.8%. Typical homes in Alameda are valued around $1,203,900, and the median resident age is 40.7 years. Educational attainment runs 60.3% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 63.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 88 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 87% from five years earlier. Alameda's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 5231.1 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).
California carries a cost-of-living premium: the state registers 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Above Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,053 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Alameda workers runs 23.0 minutes, with 46.7% driving alone and 28.1% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 88.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Alameda'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 work and mobility to housing and income to population change to comparison shortlist to reported crime to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Alameda, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Alameda?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 46.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 23.0 minutes.
How far does income reach against housing in Alameda?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 9.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.8%, 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. 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.
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 -1,239 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 88 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for Alameda?
Within California, the closest population matches are Bellflower (77,396 residents, $77,602 income); Pleasanton (77,500 residents, $186,206 income); Pittsburg (75,868 residents, $101,099 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Wyoming, MI (76,865 residents); Rapid City, SD (76,836 residents); Woodbury, MN (76,945 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.
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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Alameda?
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 5231.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 129% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
4914.2
Violent rate
317.0
Total reported rate
5231.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
The NCES join finds 18 public schools within the city match. 60.3% 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.
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
18
Bachelor's degree+
60.3%
Poverty estimate
4.8%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Top-decile income · poverty 4.8% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C
City profile score · Alameda, CA
57/100
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+
60.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A+
$132,015
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate B-
4.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
317 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
110.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Alameda profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 92/100 (A+) · 60.3%
Household income: 91/100 (A+) · $132,015
Poverty rate: 67/100 (B-) · 4.8%
Violent crime: 31/100 (F) · 317 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Alameda sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Alameda'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 - Alameda highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Alameda, CA (this city): home $1,203,900, crime 5,231/100k
Wyoming, MI : home $203,900, crime 2,616/100k
Rapid City, SD : home $270,000, crime 4,511/100k
Woodbury, MN : home $434,900, crime 1,279/100k
Schaumburg, IL : home $312,200, crime 2,489/100k
Bethlehem, PA : home $236,500, crime 1,575/100k
Hammond, IN : home $141,700, crime 3,814/100k
Bellflower, CA : home $661,100, crime 2,783/100k
Pleasanton, CA : home $1,432,300, crime 1,792/100k
Pittsburg, CA : home $583,100, crime 2,609/100k
Chino Hills, CA : home $830,000, crime 1,113/100k
Milpitas, CA : home $1,180,000, crime 3,497/100k
How does Alameda compare to other US cities?
Where Alameda sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income91% higher than other cities
Home value98% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety3% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just California and the picture shifts: Alameda ranks #426 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Alameda against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to California only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
California-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Alameda near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Alameda ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Alameda only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#254 of 1,338
81st percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#153 of 1,343
89th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#862 of 1,450
40th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#171 of 1,458
88th percentile in California
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 California only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
91st percentile nationally for median household income · 3rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Alameda's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Alameda'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 Alameda's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,203,9002nd percentilemore affordable than 2% 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
Alameda's home-value-to-income ratio: 9.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,262 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#721 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 9.1×, Alameda sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,262 of 15,516 and #721 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
$132,015Alameda, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Alameda, CA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Alameda, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)60.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
76,876
Median Income
$132,015
Median Home Value
$1,203,900
Median Age
40.7
Poverty Rate
4.8%
Labor force participation
63.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
60.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
5231.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
317.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
4914.2
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
18
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Alameda's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
78,115 residents
2021
76,622 residents
2022
75,762 residents
2023
76,535 residents
2024
77,226 residents
2025
76,876 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
88
housing units authorized
Single-Family
88
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
683
61
622
$135.0M
2020
348
81
267
$94.5M
2021
618
198
420
$129.5M
2022
197
197
0
$39.7M
2023
138
138
0
$29.5M
2024
88
88
0
$14.3M
Permit volume decreased 87% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
23.0 minutes
Drive Alone
46.7%
Carpool
6.4%
Public Transit
12.2%
Walk
2.6%
Work from Home
28.1%
Other
4.0%
Based on 38,556 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
California statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $275
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across California at $275 (electricity about $150 , water and sewer about $70 ).
These are California statewide averages, not a meter reading for Alameda. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
California's BEA cost-of-living index is 110.7 (Well Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Alameda is $2,053/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to California statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 88.7 / 100 (Very High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a California statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Alameda sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Alameda compares to similar-size California 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.