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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-GARDEN-GROVE-CA · Garden Grove, CA 170,603 pop · income 71st 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 Garden Grove
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Garden Grove on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Bayamón zona… · lowest
31,058
Bayamón zona… · lowest
31,058 median HH income
25.4% of the leader · rank #1
Denver · near
90,156
Denver · near
90,156 median HH income
73.8% of the leader · rank #2
Alabaster · near
90,163
Alabaster · near
90,163 median HH income
73.8% of the leader · rank #3
Garden Grove · this city
90,166
Garden Grove · this city
90,166 median HH income
73.8% of the leader · rank #4
Rio Rancho Es… · near
90,172
Rio Rancho Es… · near
90,172 median HH income
73.8% of the leader · rank #5
Eatontown · near
90,174
Eatontown · near
90,174 median HH income
73.8% of the leader · rank #6
Elk Grove · highest
122,229
Elk Grove · highest
122,229 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 Garden Grove 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: 170,603.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Garden Grove - the verdict
Garden Grove ranks in the 71st percentile for household income and the 31st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
71st
percentile, household income
94th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
31st
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: Garden Grove, CA
Garden Grove is a mid-sized U.S. city in California, home to 170,603 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Garden Grove brings in $90,166 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 9.4%. Home values in Garden Grove run a median of $765,500, and the median resident age is 39.6 years. About 24.9% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 60.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 108 residential building permits were authorized in Garden Grove (Construction Slowdown), down 81% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 2035.4 incidents per 100,000 residents, near the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
California carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts California at 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Above Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,053 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in Garden Grove report an average commute of 25.9 minutes, with 73.9% driving alone and 10.1% working from home. 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 Garden Grove'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 housing and income to work and mobility to reported crime to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Garden Grove, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, local building permits, 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 does the education layer cover for Garden Grove?
The NCES join finds 51 public schools within the city match. 24.9% 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 Garden Grove?
Within California, the closest population matches are Lancaster (170,013 residents, $76,083 income); Oceanside (172,542 residents, $93,724 income); Rancho Cucamonga (174,693 residents, $109,511 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Pembroke Pines, FL (170,557 residents); Fort Collins, CO (169,705 residents); Springfield, MO (169,432 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Garden Grove?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 8.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.4%, 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Garden Grove?
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 73.9%. The reported mean trip to work is 25.9 minutes.
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 Garden Grove?
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 2035.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 11% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1758.8
Violent rate
276.6
Total reported rate
2035.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Garden Grove 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 declined by -1,406 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 108 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
-0.8%
2025 estimate
170,455
2020 estimate
171,861
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 9.4% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
D
City profile score · Garden Grove, CA
41/100
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.
Household income B-
$90,166
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share D
24.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
9.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
277 /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.
Garden Grove profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 69/100 (B-) · $90,166
Bachelor's+ share: 49/100 (D) · 24.9%
Poverty rate: 42/100 (D) · 9.4%
Violent crime: 36/100 (F) · 277 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Garden Grove sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Garden Grove'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 - Garden Grove highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Garden Grove, CA (this city): home $765,500, crime 2,035/100k
Fort Collins, CO : home $548,400, crime 2,428/100k
Springfield, MO : home $165,200, crime 5,363/100k
Clarksville, TN : home $236,100, crime 2,042/100k
Salem, OR : home $382,400, crime 3,336/100k
Lancaster, CA : home $409,100, crime 2,755/100k
Oceanside, CA : home $702,000, crime 2,131/100k
Rancho Cucamonga, CA : home $694,400, crime 2,105/100k
Palmdale, CA : home $435,300, crime 2,416/100k
Santa Rosa, CA : home $685,000, crime 1,663/100k
Elk Grove, CA : home $603,400, crime 1,422/100k
How does Garden Grove compare to other US cities?
Where Garden Grove sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income71% higher than other cities
Home value94% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety31% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to California alone, Garden Grove ranks #246 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Garden Grove 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 Garden Grove near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Garden Grove ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Garden Grove only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#629 of 1,338
53rd percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#385 of 1,343
71st percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#531 of 1,450
63rd percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#751 of 1,458
48th 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
71st percentile nationally for median household income · 31st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Garden Grove's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Garden Grove'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 Garden Grove's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$765,5006th 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
Garden Grove's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,157 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#703 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 8.5×, Garden Grove sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,157 of 15,516 and #703 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
$90,166Garden Grove, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Garden Grove, 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 Garden Grove, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)24.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
170,603
Median Income
$90,166
Median Home Value
$765,500
Median Age
39.6
Poverty Rate
9.4%
Labor force participation
60.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
24.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2035.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
276.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1758.8
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
51
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Garden Grove's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
171,861 residents
2021
170,677 residents
2022
169,704 residents
2023
169,802 residents
2024
170,926 residents
2025
170,455 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
108
housing units authorized
Single-Family
108
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
577
169
408
$26.7M
2020
237
237
0
$24.6M
2021
274
274
0
$32.6M
2022
283
283
0
$35.1M
2023
192
192
0
$31.3M
2024
108
108
0
$19.3M
Permit volume decreased 81% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
25.9 minutes
Drive Alone
73.9%
Carpool
11.9%
Public Transit
1.3%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
10.1%
Other
1.8%
Based on 81,648 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 Garden Grove. 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 Garden Grove 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 Garden Grove sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Garden Grove 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.