Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetCA-SAN-BRUNO-CA · San Bruno, CA 42,612 pop · income 92nd pct
Nearest income peer: Big Bend, WI (+ $66 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 San Bruno
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest San Bruno on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
University CD… · lowest
59,322
University CD… · lowest
59,322 median HH income
40.3% of the leader · rank #1
Angostura · near
135,893
Angostura · near
135,893 median HH income
92.4% of the leader · rank #2
Linwood · near
135,904
Linwood · near
135,904 median HH income
92.4% of the leader · rank #3
San Bruno · this city
135,976
San Bruno · this city
135,976 median HH income
92.4% of the leader · rank #4
Big Bend · near
136,042
Big Bend · near
136,042 median HH income
92.5% of the leader · rank #5
Cape St. Clai… · near
136,064
Cape St. Clai… · near
136,064 median HH income
92.5% of the leader · rank #6
Campbell · highest
147,128
Campbell · highest
147,128 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 San Bruno 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: 42,612.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
San Bruno - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, San Bruno places in the 92nd percentile for household income and the 27th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
92nd
percentile, household income
98th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
27th
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: San Bruno, CA
42,612 people live in San Bruno, California - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. San Bruno households earn a median of $135,976 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.5%. San Bruno's housing stock carries a median value of $1,199,400, and the median resident age is 39.8 years. About 43.8% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 64.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 96 residential building permits were authorized in San Bruno (Building Boom), up 191% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 2221.8 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: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts California at 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Above Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,053 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 20.9 minutes, with 61.0% driving alone and 16.8% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. 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 San Bruno'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 housing and income to work and mobility to population change to schools and households 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 San Bruno, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, annual population history, local building permits, 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.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in San Bruno?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 8.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.5%, 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 San Bruno?
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 61.0%. The reported mean trip to work is 20.9 minutes.
Is San Bruno 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 -1,450 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -3.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 96 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for San Bruno?
Within California, the closest population matches are Coachella (42,594 residents, $67,558 income); Vineyard (42,645 residents, $108,403 income); French Valley (42,550 residents, $132,605 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Puyallup, WA (42,642 residents); Lake Worth Beach, FL (42,650 residents); Jefferson City, MO (42,565 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for San Bruno?
The NCES join finds 10 public schools within the city match. 43.8% 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.
Matched public schools
10
Bachelor's degree+
43.8%
Poverty estimate
2.5%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in San Bruno?
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 2221.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 3% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1965.3
Violent rate
256.5
Total reported rate
2221.8
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C+
City profile score · San Bruno, CA
60/100
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+
$135,976
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate A-
2.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share B+
43.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
257 /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.
San Bruno profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 92/100 (A+) · $135,976
Poverty rate: 82/100 (A-) · 2.5%
Bachelor's+ share: 78/100 (B+) · 43.8%
Violent crime: 39/100 (F) · 257 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where San Bruno sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
San Bruno'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 - San Bruno highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
San Bruno, CA (this city): home $1,199,400, crime 2,222/100k
Puyallup, WA : home $507,000, crime 4,244/100k
Jefferson City, MO : home $208,000, crime 2,373/100k
Manassas, VA : home $434,700, crime 2,180/100k
Coachella, CA : home $341,300, crime 1,840/100k
Campbell, CA : home $1,550,000, crime 3,439/100k
Hollister, CA : home $679,300, crime 1,164/100k
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 San Bruno compare to other US cities?
San Bruno 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
Safety27% 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, San Bruno ranks #282 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 San Bruno 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 San Bruno near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, San Bruno ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares San Bruno only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#229 of 1,338
83rd percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#155 of 1,343
88th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#1,072 of 1,450
25th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#356 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
92nd percentile nationally for median household income · 27th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
San Bruno's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
San Bruno'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 San Bruno's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,199,4002nd 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
San Bruno's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,217 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,243 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 8.8×, San Bruno sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,217 of 15,516 and #3,243 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
$135,976San Bruno, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context San Bruno, 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 San Bruno, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)43.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)64.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
42,612
Median Income
$135,976
Median Home Value
$1,199,400
Median Age
39.8
Poverty Rate
2.5%
Labor force participation
64.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
43.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2221.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
256.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1965.3
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
San Bruno's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
43,755 residents
2021
42,298 residents
2022
41,770 residents
2023
41,717 residents
2024
42,043 residents
2025
42,305 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
96
housing units authorized
Single-Family
46
detached homes
Multifamily
50
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
33
3
30
$14.6M
2020
17
17
0
$8.8M
2021
11
11
0
$5.7M
2022
28
24
4
$3.2M
2023
168
34
134
$13.8M
2024
96
46
50
$9.1M
Permit volume increased 191% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
20.9 minutes
Drive Alone
61.0%
Carpool
9.6%
Public Transit
6.6%
Walk
2.9%
Work from Home
16.8%
Other
3.1%
Based on 22,633 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 San Bruno. 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 San Bruno 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 San Bruno sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How San Bruno 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.