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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-RIDGECREST-CA · Ridgecrest, CA 28,138 pop · income 69th pct · 6 tracts
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 Ridgecrest
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Ridgecrest on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
East Niles · lowest
51,250
East Niles · lowest
51,250 median HH income
24.7% of the leader · rank #1
St. Lucie · near
88,095
St. Lucie · near
88,095 median HH income
42.4% of the leader · rank #2
Ridgecrest · this city
88,107
Ridgecrest · this city
88,107 median HH income
42.4% of the leader · rank #3
Mount Plymouth · near
88,112
Mount Plymouth · near
88,112 median HH income
42.4% of the leader · rank #4
Larkspur · near
88,125
Larkspur · near
88,125 median HH income
42.4% of the leader · rank #5
New Holland · near
88,125
New Holland · near
88,125 median HH income
42.4% of the leader · rank #6
Belmont · highest
207,609
Belmont · highest
207,609 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 Ridgecrest 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: 28,138.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Ridgecrest - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Ridgecrest places in the 69th percentile for household income and the 38th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
69th
percentile, household income
52nd
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
38th
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: Ridgecrest, CA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 28,138 residents in Ridgecrest, a small city within California. The typical household in Ridgecrest brings in $88,107 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.7%. Typical homes in Ridgecrest are valued around $235,800, and the median resident age is 34.8 years. About 31.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 55.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 48 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Slowing), down 14% from five years earlier. Ridgecrest reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1750.3 crimes per 100,000 residents, below 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: 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. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts California's average monthly utility costs around $275 (state average). 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 Ridgecrest'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 reported crime to within-city variation to comparison shortlist to population change to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Ridgecrest, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, annual population history, local building permits, matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Ridgecrest?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.5%. 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.
What does the education layer cover for Ridgecrest?
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 10 public schools within the city match. 31.7% 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.
What can 6 Census tracts reveal inside Ridgecrest?
PlainCities matches 6 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
Which cities make useful reference points for Ridgecrest?
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 Walnut (27,857 residents, $133,762 income); Temescal Valley (28,560 residents, $119,647 income); East Niles (28,586 residents, $51,250 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Chaska, MN (28,146 residents); Allen Park, MI (28,128 residents); Maple Valley, WA (28,121 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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Ridgecrest?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1750.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 23% 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.
Total reported rate
1750.3
Violent rate
675.9
Property rate
1074.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Ridgecrest growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +357 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 48 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 upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
2020 estimate
27,976
2025 estimate
28,333
Period change
+1.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Ridgecrest?
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. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.7%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.7×
Home value
$235,800
Household income
$88,107
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Above median income · poverty 7.7% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Ridgecrest, CA
38/100
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-
$88,107
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share C+
31.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
7.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
676 /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.
Ridgecrest profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 67/100 (B-) · $88,107
Bachelor's+ share: 61/100 (C+) · 31.7%
Poverty rate: 49/100 (D) · 7.7%
Violent crime: 7/100 (F) · 676 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Ridgecrest sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Ridgecrest'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 - Ridgecrest highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Ridgecrest, CA (this city): home $235,800, crime 1,750/100k
Chaska, MN : home $379,400, crime 720/100k
Allen Park, MI : home $174,500, crime 1,990/100k
Maple Valley, WA : home $672,000, crime 1,580/100k
Oakdale, MN : home $305,900, crime 1,942/100k
Glen Cove, NY : home $654,500, crime 580/100k
Walnut, CA : home $972,500, crime 2,019/100k
Twentynine Palms, CA : home $238,400, crime 1,194/100k
Belmont, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 1,448/100k
Lemon Grove, CA : home $640,600, crime 1,517/100k
How does Ridgecrest compare to other US cities?
Here's how Ridgecrest stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income69% higher than other cities
Home value52% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety38% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at California, Ridgecrest ranks #191 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Ridgecrest 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 Ridgecrest near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Ridgecrest ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Ridgecrest only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#657 of 1,338
51st percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1,193 of 1,343
11th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#632 of 1,450
56th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#592 of 1,458
59th 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
69th percentile nationally for median household income · 38th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Ridgecrest's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Ridgecrest'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 Ridgecrest's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$235,80048th percentilemore affordable than 48% 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
Ridgecrest's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,901 of 15,516
More affordable than 68% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#522 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.7×, Ridgecrest sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,901 of 15,516 and #522 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
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
$88,107Ridgecrest, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Ridgecrest, 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 Ridgecrest, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)31.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)55.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
28,138
Median Income
$88,107
Median Home Value
$235,800
Median Age
34.8
Poverty Rate
7.7%
Labor force participation
55.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
31.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1750.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
675.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1074.4
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
10
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Ridgecrest's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
27,976 residents
2021
28,220 residents
2022
28,240 residents
2023
28,235 residents
2024
28,386 residents
2025
28,333 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
48
housing units authorized
Single-Family
8
detached homes
Multifamily
40
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
56
50
6
$7.9M
2020
73
73
0
$13.2M
2021
152
80
72
$12.5M
2022
52
36
16
$4.9M
2023
38
12
26
$2.2M
2024
48
8
40
$3.2M
Permit volume decreased 14% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
75.5%
Carpool
11.6%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
1.7%
Work from Home
9.6%
Other
1.5%
Based on 12,234 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 Ridgecrest. 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 Ridgecrest 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 Ridgecrest sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Ridgecrest 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.