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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-ALBANY-CA · Albany, CA 19,768 pop · income 92nd 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 Albany
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Albany on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Nogales · lowest
40,745
Nogales · lowest
40,745 median HH income
23.7% of the leader · rank #1
Chesapeake Be… · near
135,888
Chesapeake Be… · near
135,888 median HH income
79.0% of the leader · rank #2
Angostura · near
135,893
Angostura · near
135,893 median HH income
79.0% of the leader · rank #3
Linwood · near
135,904
Linwood · near
135,904 median HH income
79.0% of the leader · rank #4
Albany · this city
135,927
Albany · this city
135,927 median HH income
79.1% of the leader · rank #5
Big Bend · near
136,042
Big Bend · near
136,042 median HH income
79.1% of the leader · rank #6
Agoura Hills · highest
171,944
Agoura Hills · highest
171,944 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 Albany 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: 19,768.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Albany - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Albany places in the 92nd percentile for household income and the 20th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
92nd
percentile, household income
98th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
20th
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: Albany, CA
Albany is a small town in California, home to 19,768 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Albany report a median income of $135,927 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 6.1%. Home values in Albany run a median of $1,188,600, and the median resident age is 37.8 years. About 76.4% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 65.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 11 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Slowing), down 8% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 2631.4 crimes per 100,000 residents, near the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
California carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, California scores 110.7 (Well Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. 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. Workers in Albany report an average commute of 21.7 minutes, with 37.4% driving alone and 33.5% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 88.7 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Albany'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 schools and households to housing and income to population change to comparison shortlist to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Albany, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, commute-mode shares, local building permits, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates.
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 Albany?
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 37.4%. The reported mean trip to work is 21.7 minutes.
The NCES join finds 6 public schools within the city match. 76.4% 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 Albany?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 8.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.1%, 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Albany?
Within California, the closest population matches are Oroville (19,855 residents, $51,893 income); Agoura Hills (19,881 residents, $171,944 income); Casa de Oro-Mount Helix (19,651 residents, $123,037 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Broadview Heights, OH (19,768 residents); Palm Valley, FL (19,775 residents); Lackawanna, NY (19,779 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.
Population change
Is Albany 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 -1,011 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -5.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 11 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
-5.0%
2025 estimate
19,195
2020 estimate
20,206
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Albany?
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 2631.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 15% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
2492.7
Violent rate
138.8
Total reported rate
2631.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Top-decile income · poverty 6.1% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C+
City profile score · Albany, CA
63/100
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+
76.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A+
$135,927
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime C+
139 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate C
6.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better 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.
Albany profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 100/100 (A+) · 76.4%
Household income: 92/100 (A+) · $135,927
Violent crime: 61/100 (C+) · 139 /100k
Poverty rate: 58/100 (C) · 6.1%
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Albany sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Albany'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 - Albany highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Albany, CA (this city): home $1,188,600, crime 2,631/100k
Broadview Heights, OH : home $292,500, crime 107/100k
Lackawanna, NY : home $126,500, crime 1,956/100k
Crest Hill, IL : home $222,600, crime 1,089/100k
Nogales, AZ : home $172,800, crime 3,830/100k
Oroville, CA : home $280,600, crime 4,800/100k
Agoura Hills, CA : home $1,072,200, crime 1,019/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Albany compare to other US cities?
Albany measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income92% higher than other cities
Home value98% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety20% 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: Albany ranks #329 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 Albany 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 Albany near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Albany ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Albany only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#230 of 1,338
83rd percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#162 of 1,343
88th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#753 of 1,450
48th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#50 of 1,458
97th 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
92nd percentile nationally for median household income · 20th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Albany's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Albany'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 Albany's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,188,6002nd 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
Albany's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,205 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,240 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 8.7×, Albany sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,205 of 15,516 and #3,240 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$135,927Albany, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Albany, 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 Albany, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)76.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
19,768
Median Income
$135,927
Median Home Value
$1,188,600
Median Age
37.8
Poverty Rate
6.1%
Labor force participation
65.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
76.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2631.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
138.8
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2492.7
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
6
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Albany's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
20,206 residents
2021
18,907 residents
2022
19,190 residents
2023
19,167 residents
2024
19,204 residents
2025
19,195 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
11
housing units authorized
Single-Family
11
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
12
12
0
$1.2M
2020
20
18
2
$4.8M
2021
10
10
0
$1.0M
2022
81
19
62
$43.0M
2023
5
5
0
$1.2M
2024
11
11
0
$1.5M
Permit volume decreased 8% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
21.7 minutes
Drive Alone
37.4%
Carpool
3.6%
Public Transit
16.3%
Walk
4.8%
Work from Home
33.5%
Other
4.4%
Based on 10,053 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 Albany. 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 Albany 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 Albany sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Albany 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.