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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-MENLO-PARK-CA · Menlo Park, CA 32,775 pop · income 98th pct
Nearest income peer: Richwood, NJ (+ $97 income $)
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 Menlo Park
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Menlo Park on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Desert Hot Sp… · lowest
50,349
Desert Hot Sp… · lowest
50,349 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #1
Menlo Park · this city
206,588
Menlo Park · this city
206,588 median HH income
99.4% of the leader · rank #2
Richwood · near
206,685
Richwood · near
206,685 median HH income
99.4% of the leader · rank #3
Terrace Park · near
206,705
Terrace Park · near
206,705 median HH income
99.4% of the leader · rank #4
Moreland Hills · near
206,818
Moreland Hills · near
206,818 median HH income
99.5% of the leader · rank #5
Martinsville · near
206,839
Martinsville · near
206,839 median HH income
99.5% of the leader · rank #6
Los Gatos · highest
207,891
Los Gatos · highest
207,891 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 Menlo Park 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: 32,775.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Menlo Park - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Menlo Park places in the 98th percentile for household income and the 32nd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
98th
percentile, household income
99th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
32nd
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: Menlo Park, CA
California's Menlo Park is a small city, with 32,775 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Menlo Park brings in $206,588 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.3%. Home values in Menlo Park sit on the ACS top-code of $2,000,000+; the true median is at least that high and is not published exactly, and the median resident age is 38.5 years. Educational attainment runs 72.7% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 63.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 84 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 66% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2009.5 in FBI UCR data, near 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. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,053 monthly. 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 Menlo Park'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 work and mobility to schools and households to population change to housing and income to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Menlo Park, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
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 Menlo Park?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2009.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 12% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Menlo Park?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 49.4%. 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. 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.
What does the education layer cover for Menlo Park?
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 7 public schools within the city match. 72.7% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Menlo Park?
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 Los Gatos (32,773 residents, $207,891 income); Desert Hot Springs (32,786 residents, $50,349 income); Bell (32,830 residents, $60,641 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Houma, LA (32,760 residents); Brooklyn Center, MN (32,811 residents); St. Charles, IL (32,733 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.
Population change
Is Menlo Park growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -964 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 84 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.
2020 estimate
33,677
2025 estimate
32,713
Period change
-2.9%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Menlo Park?
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 9.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
9.7×
Home value
$2,000,000+
Household income
$206,588
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
Note: Census ACS censors the tails of median household income ($250,000+ / under $2,500) and median home value ($2,000,000+ / under $10,000).
Home value is shown as $2,000,000+ for the same reason.
B-
City profile score · Menlo Park, CA
66/100
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 A+
$206,588
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A+
72.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate A-
2.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
229 /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.
Menlo Park profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 100/100 (A+) · $206,588
Bachelor's+ share: 99/100 (A+) · 72.7%
Poverty rate: 84/100 (A-) · 2.3%
Violent crime: 43/100 (D) · 229 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Menlo Park sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Menlo Park'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 - Menlo Park highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Menlo Park, CA (this city): home $2,000,000+, crime 2,010/100k
Brooklyn Center, MN : home $261,100, crime 3,368/100k
St. Charles, IL : home $369,700, crime 1,156/100k
Savage, MN : home $395,600, crime 794/100k
Los Gatos, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 1,580/100k
Desert Hot Springs, CA : home $309,300, crime 1,692/100k
Bell, CA : home $561,400, crime 1,745/100k
Lathrop, CA : home $605,000, crime 1,723/100k
Goleta, CA : home $1,002,500, crime 1,774/100k
Dana Point, CA : home $1,200,900, crime 1,059/100k
How does Menlo Park compare to other US cities?
Where Menlo Park sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income98% higher than other cities
Home value99% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety32% 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: Menlo Park ranks #241 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 Menlo Park 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 Menlo Park near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Menlo Park ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Menlo Park only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#65 of 1,338
95th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1 of 1,343
95th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#1,091 of 1,450
24th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#78 of 1,458
94th 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
98th percentile nationally for median household income · 32nd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Menlo Park's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Menlo Park'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 Menlo Park's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$2,000,000+1st percentilemore affordable than 1% 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
Menlo Park's home-value-to-income ratio: 9.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,329 of 15,516
More affordable than 1% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,281 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 9.7×, Menlo Park sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,329 of 15,516 and #3,281 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
$206,588Menlo Park, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Menlo Park, 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 Menlo Park, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)72.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
32,775
Median Income
$206,588
Median Home Value
$2,000,000+
Median Age
38.5
Poverty Rate
2.3%
Labor force participation
63.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
72.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2009.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
228.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1780.9
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
7
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Menlo Park's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
33,677 residents
2021
32,556 residents
2022
32,077 residents
2023
32,295 residents
2024
32,716 residents
2025
32,713 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
84
housing units authorized
Single-Family
84
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
245
49
196
$92.1M
2020
12
12
0
$19.9M
2021
173
33
140
$89.1M
2022
821
45
776
$144.3M
2023
59
59
0
$51.1M
2024
84
84
0
$69.1M
Permit volume decreased 66% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
49.4%
Carpool
7.2%
Public Transit
3.0%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
29.3%
Other
9.6%
Based on 16,293 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 Menlo Park. 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 Menlo Park 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 Menlo Park sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Menlo Park 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.