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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-ARROYO-GRANDE-CA · Arroyo Grande, CA 18,412 pop · income 80th 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 Arroyo Grande
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Arroyo Grande on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Arcata · lowest
48,731
Arcata · lowest
48,731 median HH income
36.1% of the leader · rank #1
Montverde · near
103,250
Montverde · near
103,250 median HH income
76.4% of the leader · rank #2
Jim Falls · near
103,250
Jim Falls · near
103,250 median HH income
76.4% of the leader · rank #3
Bridge City · near
103,256
Bridge City · near
103,256 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #4
Arroyo Grande · this city
103,258
Arroyo Grande · this city
103,258 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #5
Methuen · near
103,270
Methuen · near
103,270 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #6
Coronado · highest
135,056
Coronado · highest
135,056 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 Arroyo Grande 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: 18,412.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Arroyo Grande - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Arroyo Grande places in the 80th percentile for household income and the 66th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
80th
percentile, household income
94th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
66th
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: Arroyo Grande, CA
18,412 people live in Arroyo Grande, California - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Arroyo Grande report a median income of $103,258 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.0%. Home values in Arroyo Grande run a median of $758,100, and the median resident age is 45.2 years. 44.5% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 57.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 33 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Stable), up 3% from five years earlier. Arroyo Grande reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 951.6 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as 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. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,053 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $275 across California, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 88.7 out of 100 (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Arroyo Grande'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 reported crime to housing and income to population change to comparison shortlist to schools and households to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Arroyo Grande, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, 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.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Arroyo Grande?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 951.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 58% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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.
How far does income reach against housing in Arroyo Grande?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 7.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Is Arroyo Grande growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -314 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 33 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Arroyo Grande?
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.
Within California, the closest population matches are Castaic (18,479 residents, $132,153 income); Coronado (18,558 residents, $135,056 income); Arcata (18,578 residents, $48,731 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Dover, NJ (18,420 residents); Sudley, VA (18,420 residents); Tallmadge, OH (18,394 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.
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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Arroyo Grande?
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.
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 44.5% 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.
Poverty estimate
2.0%
Bachelor's degree+
44.5%
Matched public schools
8
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Arroyo Grande?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.7%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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.
Drive alone
70.7%
Work from home
11.5%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 8,690 workers age 16+.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C
City profile score · Arroyo Grande, CA
59/100
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.
Poverty rate A
2.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share B+
44.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B+
$103,258
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime D
198 /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.
Arroyo Grande profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 86/100 (A) · 2.0%
Bachelor's+ share: 79/100 (B+) · 44.5%
Household income: 78/100 (B+) · $103,258
Violent crime: 48/100 (D) · 198 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Arroyo Grande sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Arroyo Grande'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 - Arroyo Grande highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Arroyo Grande, CA (this city): home $758,100, crime 952/100k
Dover, NJ : home $347,100, crime 1,093/100k
Tallmadge, OH : home $226,400, crime 1,061/100k
Oconomowoc, WI : home $367,700, crime 324/100k
Newton, KS : home $151,800, crime 2,287/100k
Coronado, CA : home $1,998,900, crime 1,947/100k
Arcata, CA : home $466,600, crime 2,271/100k
Pinole, CA : home $697,100, crime 2,458/100k
How does Arroyo Grande compare to other US cities?
Here's how Arroyo Grande stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income80% higher than other cities
Home value94% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety66% 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: Arroyo Grande ranks #49 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 Arroyo Grande 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 Arroyo Grande near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Arroyo Grande ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Arroyo Grande only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#473 of 1,338
65th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#394 of 1,343
71st percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#1,116 of 1,450
23rd percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#345 of 1,458
76th 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
80th percentile nationally for median household income · 66th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Arroyo Grande's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Arroyo Grande'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 Arroyo Grande's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$758,1006th percentilemore affordable than 6% 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
Arroyo Grande's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,830 of 15,516
More affordable than 4% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,158 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 7.3×, Arroyo Grande sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,830 of 15,516 and #3,158 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
$103,258Arroyo Grande, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Arroyo Grande, 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 Arroyo Grande, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)44.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
18,412
Median Income
$103,258
Median Home Value
$758,100
Median Age
45.2
Poverty Rate
2.0%
Labor force participation
57.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
44.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
951.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
198.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
753.6
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.
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Arroyo Grande's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
18,437 residents
2021
18,494 residents
2022
18,379 residents
2023
18,268 residents
2024
18,225 residents
2025
18,123 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Stable
Total Permits (2024)
33
housing units authorized
Single-Family
28
detached homes
Multifamily
5
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
32
32
0
$13.2M
2020
49
49
0
$15.3M
2021
54
54
0
$16.9M
2022
7
7
0
$2.4M
2023
11
11
0
$3.5M
2024
33
28
5
$9.1M
Permit volume increased 3% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
70.7%
Carpool
11.6%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
2.1%
Work from Home
11.5%
Other
4.1%
Based on 8,690 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 Arroyo Grande. 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 Arroyo Grande 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 Arroyo Grande sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Arroyo Grande 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.