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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-SANTA-BARBARA-CA · Santa Barbara, CA 88,024 pop · income 79th pct · 109 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 Santa Barbara
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Santa Barbara 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
Ortonville · near
101,667
Ortonville · near
101,667 median HH income
55.0% of the leader · rank #2
Pecan Hill · near
101,667
Pecan Hill · near
101,667 median HH income
55.0% of the leader · rank #3
Santa Barbara · this city
101,672
Santa Barbara · this city
101,672 median HH income
55.0% of the leader · rank #4
Highland Acres · near
101,685
Highland Acres · near
101,685 median HH income
55.0% of the leader · rank #5
Conejo · near
101,685
Conejo · near
101,685 median HH income
55.0% 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 Santa Barbara 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: 88,024.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Santa Barbara - the verdict
Santa Barbara ranks in the 79th percentile for household income and the 23rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
79th
percentile, household income
99th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
23rd
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: Santa Barbara, CA
Santa Barbara is a small city in California, home to 88,024 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Santa Barbara brings in $101,672 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 6.7%. Home values in Santa Barbara run a median of $1,466,400, and the median resident age is 39.4 years. 50.2% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 54 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 53% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 2458.1 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, near the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 58.4°F with 19.0 inches of precipitation per year.
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. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,053 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts California's average monthly utility costs around $275 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 88.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Santa Barbara'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 comparison shortlist to population change to work and mobility to reported crime to schools and households to housing and income to climate and hazard context to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Santa Barbara, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Santa Barbara?
Within California, the closest population matches are San Leandro (88,531 residents, $98,063 income); Citrus Heights (87,036 residents, $77,167 income); Manteca (86,521 residents, $94,718 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Santa Fe, NM (88,224 residents); Lawrence, MA (88,297 residents); Newton, MA (88,504 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.
Is Santa Barbara 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 -2,331 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 54 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What does the journey to work look like in Santa Barbara?
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 61.3%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
What can 109 Census tracts reveal inside Santa Barbara?
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.
PlainCities matches 109 Census tracts to this city.
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 Santa Barbara?
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 2458.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 8% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1809.7
Violent rate
648.3
Total reported rate
2458.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the education layer cover for Santa Barbara?
The NCES join finds 33 public schools within the city match. 50.2% 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
33
Bachelor's degree+
50.2%
Poverty estimate
6.7%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Santa Barbara?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 14.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.7%, 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.
Household income
$101,672
Home value
$1,466,400
Value / income
14.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What physical conditions frame life in Santa Barbara?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 58.4°F, with 19.0 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for California is 88.7 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
Mean temperature
58.4°F
Annual precipitation
19.0 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
88.7
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
D
City profile score · Santa Barbara, 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.
Bachelor's+ share A-
50.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B+
$101,672
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C-
6.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
648 /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.
Santa Barbara profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 84/100 (A-) · 50.2%
Household income: 78/100 (B+) · $101,672
Poverty rate: 54/100 (C-) · 6.7%
Violent crime: 8/100 (F) · 648 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Santa Barbara sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Santa Barbara'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 - Santa Barbara highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Santa Barbara, CA (this city): home $1,466,400, crime 2,458/100k
Santa Fe, NM : home $411,500, crime 5,999/100k
Lawrence, MA : home $393,500, crime 1,439/100k
Newton, MA : home $1,202,500, crime 648/100k
Greenville, NC : home $213,100, crime 3,367/100k
Springdale, AR : home $237,200, crime 2,412/100k
Troy, MI : home $396,800, crime 1,392/100k
San Leandro, CA : home $813,600, crime 4,472/100k
Citrus Heights, CA : home $432,100, crime 2,566/100k
Manteca, CA : home $561,200, crime 1,816/100k
Merced, CA : home $347,700, crime 3,577/100k
Hawthorne, CA : home $813,700, crime 3,193/100k
Whittier, CA : home $751,700, crime 2,866/100k
How does Santa Barbara compare to other US cities?
Where Santa Barbara sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income79% higher than other cities
Home value99% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety23% 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, Santa Barbara ranks #303 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 Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Santa Barbara ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Santa Barbara only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#488 of 1,338
64th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#112 of 1,343
92nd percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#711 of 1,450
51st percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#271 of 1,458
81st 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
79th percentile nationally for median household income · 23rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Santa Barbara's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Santa Barbara'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 Santa Barbara's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,466,4001st 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
Santa Barbara's home-value-to-income ratio: 14.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,488 of 15,516
More affordable than 0% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#749 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 14.4×, Santa Barbara sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,488 of 15,516 and #749 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
$101,672Santa Barbara, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Santa Barbara, 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 Santa Barbara, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)50.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
88,024
Median Income
$101,672
Median Home Value
$1,466,400
Median Age
39.4
Poverty Rate
6.7%
Labor force participation
61.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
50.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2458.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
648.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1809.7
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
58.4°F
Annual Precipitation
19.0"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
33
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Santa Barbara's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
88,753 residents
2021
88,218 residents
2022
87,472 residents
2023
86,984 residents
2024
86,849 residents
2025
86,422 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
54
housing units authorized
Single-Family
16
detached homes
Multifamily
38
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
114
13
101
$18.5M
2020
118
14
104
$19.2M
2021
229
156
73
$11.0M
2022
67
67
0
$26.2M
2023
81
16
65
$19.6M
2024
54
16
38
$29.7M
Permit volume decreased 53% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
61.3%
Carpool
9.7%
Public Transit
2.3%
Walk
4.2%
Work from Home
17.0%
Other
5.5%
Based on 44,907 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 Santa Barbara. 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 Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Santa Barbara 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, NOAA Climate Normals, 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.