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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-SAN-LEANDRO-CA · San Leandro, CA 88,531 pop · income 77th 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 San Leandro
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest San Leandro on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Greenville · lowest
50,564
Greenville · lowest
50,564 median HH income
27.3% of the leader · rank #1
Jimmerson Lake · near
98,060
Jimmerson Lake · near
98,060 median HH income
53.0% of the leader · rank #2
San Leandro · this city
98,063
San Leandro · this city
98,063 median HH income
53.0% of the leader · rank #3
Lake Hart · near
98,068
Lake Hart · near
98,068 median HH income
53.0% of the leader · rank #4
Victor · near
98,068
Victor · near
98,068 median HH income
53.0% of the leader · rank #5
Winter Park · near
98,076
Winter Park · near
98,076 median HH income
53.0% of the leader · rank #6
Newton · highest
184,989
Newton · highest
184,989 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 Leandro 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: 88,531.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
San Leandro - the verdict
Nationally, San Leandro sits in the 77th percentile for household income and the 5th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
77th
percentile, household income
95th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
5th
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 Leandro, CA
San Leandro is a small city in California, home to 88,531 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in San Leandro report a median income of $98,063 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.9%. Home values in San Leandro run a median of $813,600, and the median resident age is 41.5 years. Educational attainment runs 33.7% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 61.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 65 residential building permits were authorized in San Leandro (Building Boom), up 71% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. San Leandro's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 4471.5 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects 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. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 28.3 minutes, with 61.8% driving alone and 12.8% 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 Leandro'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 reported crime to work and mobility to housing and income to comparison shortlist to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For San Leandro, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, 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.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for San Leandro?
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 18 public schools within the city match. 33.7% 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 the FBI record say about safety in San Leandro?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 4471.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 96% higher 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 San Leandro?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 61.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 28.3 minutes.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for San Leandro?
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 Santa Barbara (88,024 residents, $101,672 income); Merced (89,766 residents, $59,938 income); Citrus Heights (87,036 residents, $77,167 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Greenville, NC (88,540 residents); Newton, MA (88,504 residents); Lawrence, MA (88,297 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in San Leandro?
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 8.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
8.3×
Home value
$813,600
Household income
$98,063
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is San Leandro growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -5,378 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -5.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 65 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
90,731
2025 estimate
85,353
Period change
-5.9%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
D
City profile score · San Leandro, CA
46/100
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+
$98,063
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate B-
4.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share C+
33.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
549 /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 Leandro profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 76/100 (B+) · $98,063
Poverty rate: 66/100 (B-) · 4.9%
Bachelor's+ share: 64/100 (C+) · 33.7%
Violent crime: 13/100 (F) · 549 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where San Leandro sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
San Leandro'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 Leandro highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
San Leandro, CA (this city): home $813,600, crime 4,472/100k
Greenville, NC : home $213,100, crime 3,367/100k
Newton, MA : home $1,202,500, crime 648/100k
Lawrence, MA : home $393,500, crime 1,439/100k
Champaign, IL : home $199,700, crime 2,781/100k
Bloomington, MN : home $346,200, crime 3,776/100k
Santa Fe, NM : home $411,500, crime 5,999/100k
Santa Barbara, CA : home $1,466,400, crime 2,458/100k
Merced, CA : home $347,700, crime 3,577/100k
Citrus Heights, CA : home $432,100, crime 2,566/100k
Westminster, CA : home $820,000, crime 2,934/100k
Manteca, CA : home $561,200, crime 1,816/100k
Hemet, CA : home $314,200, crime 2,059/100k
How does San Leandro compare to other US cities?
Here's how San Leandro stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income77% higher than other cities
Home value95% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety5% 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, San Leandro ranks #421 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 San Leandro 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 Leandro near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, San Leandro ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares San Leandro only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#536 of 1,338
60th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#355 of 1,343
74th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#853 of 1,450
41st percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#552 of 1,458
62nd 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
77th percentile nationally for median household income · 5th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
San Leandro's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
San Leandro'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 Leandro's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$813,6005th percentilemore affordable than 5% 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 Leandro's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,115 of 15,516
More affordable than 3% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#698 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 8.3×, San Leandro sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,115 of 15,516 and #698 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
$98,063San Leandro, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context San Leandro, 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 Leandro, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)33.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
88,531
Median Income
$98,063
Median Home Value
$813,600
Median Age
41.5
Poverty Rate
4.9%
Labor force participation
61.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
33.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
4471.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
548.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3922.8
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
18
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
San Leandro's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
90,731 residents
2021
88,396 residents
2022
86,778 residents
2023
86,271 residents
2024
85,906 residents
2025
85,353 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
65
housing units authorized
Single-Family
65
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
38
34
4
$3.4M
2020
20
18
2
$3.0M
2021
54
48
6
$7.5M
2022
285
48
237
$51.1M
2023
48
48
0
$7.3M
2024
65
65
0
$13.8M
Permit volume increased 71% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
28.3 minutes
Drive Alone
61.8%
Carpool
11.6%
Public Transit
10.4%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
12.8%
Other
1.9%
Based on 44,710 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 Leandro. 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 Leandro 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 Leandro sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How San Leandro 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.