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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-VISTA-CA · Vista, CA 98,646 pop · income 72nd 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 Vista
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Vista on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Roanoke · lowest
52,671
Roanoke · lowest
52,671 median HH income
44.5% of the leader · rank #1
Three Way · near
91,845
Three Way · near
91,845 median HH income
77.7% of the leader · rank #2
Cedar Point · near
91,853
Cedar Point · near
91,853 median HH income
77.7% of the leader · rank #3
Vista · this city
91,854
Vista · this city
91,854 median HH income
77.7% of the leader · rank #4
Georgetown · near
91,857
Georgetown · near
91,857 median HH income
77.7% of the leader · rank #5
Huntington Ce… · near
91,862
Huntington Ce… · near
91,862 median HH income
77.7% of the leader · rank #6
Tracy · highest
118,253
Tracy · highest
118,253 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 Vista 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: 98,646.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Vista - the verdict
Vista ranks in the 72nd percentile for household income and the 57th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
72nd
percentile, household income
92nd
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
57th
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: Vista, CA
98,646 people live in Vista, California - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $91,854 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.1%. Home values in Vista run a median of $674,400, and the median resident age is 34.9 years. 27.2% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 62.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 220 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 59% from five years earlier. Vista reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1180.2 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 62.7°F with 13.4 inches of precipitation per year.
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). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,053 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $275 across California, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 23.1 minutes, with 75.7% driving alone and 13.2% 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 Vista'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 climate and hazard context to schools and households to housing and income to reported crime to work and mobility 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 Vista, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits.
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 physical conditions frame life in Vista?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 62.7°F, with 13.4 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.
The NCES join finds 28 public schools within the city match. 27.2% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Vista?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 7.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.1%, 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Vista?
Within California, the closest population matches are Hesperia (100,141 residents, $68,971 income); Norwalk (100,713 residents, $98,709 income); Arden-Arcade (96,319 residents, $71,767 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Roanoke, VA (98,677 residents); New Braunfels, TX (98,700 residents); Yuma, AZ (98,461 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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Vista?
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 1180.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 48% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
863.8
Violent rate
316.4
Total reported rate
1180.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 23.1 minutes.
Public transit
1.0%
Work from home
13.2%
Drive alone
75.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 48,711 workers age 16+.
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -564 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 220 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
-0.6%
2025 estimate
98,274
2020 estimate
98,838
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 7.1% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
D
City profile score · Vista, CA
44/100
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
$91,854
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share C-
27.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate C-
7.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
316 /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.
Vista profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 71/100 (B) · $91,854
Bachelor's+ share: 53/100 (C-) · 27.2%
Poverty rate: 52/100 (C-) · 7.1%
Violent crime: 31/100 (F) · 316 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Vista sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Vista'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 - Vista highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Vista, CA (this city): home $674,400, crime 1,180/100k
Roanoke, VA : home $180,500, crime 4,676/100k
New Braunfels, TX : home $315,100, crime 1,440/100k
Yuma, AZ : home $209,100, crime 1,671/100k
Boca Raton, FL : home $660,100, crime 1,848/100k
Longmont, CO : home $541,400, crime 3,088/100k
Kenosha, WI : home $210,500, crime 1,152/100k
Hesperia, CA : home $366,800, crime 1,946/100k
Norwalk, CA : home $616,600, crime 2,333/100k
Tracy, CA : home $653,900, crime 1,893/100k
Chico, CA : home $455,300, crime 2,597/100k
Vacaville, CA : home $596,700, crime 2,033/100k
How does Vista compare to other US cities?
Vista measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income72% higher than other cities
Home value92% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety57% 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, Vista ranks #96 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 Vista 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 Vista near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Vista ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Vista only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#610 of 1,338
54th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#467 of 1,343
65th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#674 of 1,450
53rd percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#685 of 1,458
53rd 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
72nd percentile nationally for median household income · 57th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Vista's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Vista'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 Vista's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$674,4008th percentilemore affordable than 8% 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
Vista's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,832 of 15,516
More affordable than 4% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#668 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 7.3×, Vista sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,832 of 15,516 and #668 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
$91,854Vista, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Vista, 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 Vista, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)27.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
98,646
Median Income
$91,854
Median Home Value
$674,400
Median Age
34.9
Poverty Rate
7.1%
Labor force participation
62.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
27.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1180.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
316.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
863.8
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
62.7°F
Annual Precipitation
13.4"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
28
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Vista's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
98,838 residents
2021
99,244 residents
2022
99,182 residents
2023
98,996 residents
2024
98,918 residents
2025
98,274 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
220
housing units authorized
Single-Family
181
detached homes
Multifamily
39
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
540
242
298
$86.8M
2020
500
261
239
$85.1M
2021
95
95
0
$12.1M
2022
173
91
82
$24.9M
2023
206
100
106
$26.3M
2024
220
181
39
$37.6M
Permit volume decreased 59% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
23.1 minutes
Drive Alone
75.7%
Carpool
7.4%
Public Transit
1.0%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
13.2%
Other
1.7%
Based on 48,711 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 Vista. 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 Vista 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 Vista sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Vista 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.