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Place dossier plate
SheetIA-COUNCIL-BLUFFS-IA · Council Bluffs, IA 62,564 pop · income 41st pct · 5 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 Council Bluffs
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Council Bluffs on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Bossier City · lowest
55,130
Bossier City · lowest
55,130 median HH income
39.2% of the leader · rank #1
Tecumseh · near
64,086
Tecumseh · near
64,086 median HH income
45.6% of the leader · rank #2
Atlanta · near
64,091
Atlanta · near
64,091 median HH income
45.6% of the leader · rank #3
Hillsdale · near
64,091
Hillsdale · near
64,091 median HH income
45.6% of the leader · rank #4
Council Bluffs · this city
64,092
Council Bluffs · this city
64,092 median HH income
45.6% of the leader · rank #5
Kenner · near
64,099
Kenner · near
64,099 median HH income
45.6% of the leader · rank #6
Brookline · highest
140,631
Brookline · highest
140,631 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 Council Bluffs 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: 62,564.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Council Bluffs - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Council Bluffs lands in the 41st percentile for household income and the 17th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
41st
percentile, household income
32nd
percentile, home value
11th
percentile, median rent
17th
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: Council Bluffs, IA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 62,564 residents in Council Bluffs, a small city within Iowa. Council Bluffs households earn a median of $64,092 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.7%. Typical homes in Council Bluffs are valued around $164,300, and the median resident age is 39.0 years. 21.7% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 60.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 632 residential building permits were authorized in Council Bluffs (Building Boom), up 496% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Council Bluffs's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 2873.0 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, above the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Iowa run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Iowa at 87.8 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $989 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $212 across Iowa, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Council Bluffs report an average commute of 17.1 minutes, with 80.0% driving alone and 7.8% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 39.7 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Council Bluffs'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 reported crime to housing and income to population change to work and mobility to within-city variation to comparison shortlist to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Council Bluffs, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Council Bluffs?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2873.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 26% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Council Bluffs?
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 2.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.7%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What can 5 Census tracts reveal inside Council Bluffs?
PlainCities matches 5 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 Council Bluffs?
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 Iowa, the closest population matches are Dubuque (59,271 residents, $64,985 income); Ames (66,112 residents, $60,102 income); Waterloo (66,947 residents, $56,344 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Huntersville, NC (62,458 residents); Taylor, MI (62,405 residents); Hendersonville, TN (62,390 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.
Population change
Is Council Bluffs growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -112 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 632 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
2020 estimate
62,792
2025 estimate
62,680
Period change
-0.2%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Council Bluffs?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 80.0%. The reported mean trip to work is 17.1 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.
Drive alone
80.0%
Work from home
7.8%
Public transit
0.9%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 30,051 workers age 16+.
What does the education layer cover for Council Bluffs?
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 17 public schools within the city match. 21.7% 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.
Poverty estimate
8.7%
Bachelor's degree+
21.7%
Matched public schools
17
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Below median income · poverty 8.7% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
87.8 (US=100)
Very affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Iowa average
D
City profile score · Council Bluffs, IA
48/100
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.
Cost of living A+
87.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Poverty rate D
8.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income D
$64,092
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
21.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
421 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Council Bluffs profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 94/100 (A+) · 87.8 index
Poverty rate: 45/100 (D) · 8.7%
Household income: 41/100 (D) · $64,092
Bachelor's+ share: 39/100 (F) · 21.7%
Violent crime: 21/100 (F) · 421 /100k
Where Council Bluffs sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Council Bluffs'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 - Council Bluffs highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Council Bluffs, IA (this city): home $164,300, crime 2,873/100k
Huntersville, NC : home $439,300, crime 1,507/100k
Taylor, MI : home $141,200, crime 2,855/100k
Hendersonville, TN : home $396,500, crime 837/100k
Porterville, CA : home $273,600, crime 1,867/100k
Brookline, MA : home $1,233,100, crime 995/100k
Bossier City, LA : home $192,300, crime 4,593/100k
Dubuque, IA : home $193,100, crime 1,836/100k
Ames, IA : home $263,800, crime 1,654/100k
Waterloo, IA : home $150,200, crime 2,921/100k
West Des Moines, IA : home $286,300, crime 1,879/100k
Ankeny, IA : home $311,300, crime 1,188/100k
Iowa City, IA : home $273,600, crime 1,995/100k
How does Council Bluffs compare to other US cities?
Where Council Bluffs sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income41% higher than other cities
Home value32% pricier than other cities
Median rent11% pricier than other cities
Safety17% 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 Iowa alone, Council Bluffs ranks #130 of 141 Iowa 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 Council Bluffs against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Iowa only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Iowa-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Council Bluffs near the bottom of Iowa's cities
Among the 858 Iowa cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Council Bluffs ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Council Bluffs only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#455 of 845
46th percentile in Iowa
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 858
0th percentile in Iowa
Median Home Value
#215 of 849
75th percentile in Iowa
Poverty Rate
#280 of 858
67th percentile in Iowa
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#272 of 858
68th percentile in Iowa
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 Iowa only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
41st percentile nationally for median household income · 17th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Council Bluffs's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Council Bluffs'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 Council Bluffs's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$164,300Among the most affordablemore affordable than 68% 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
Council Bluffs's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,339 of 15,516
More affordable than 72% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#45 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 2.6×, Council Bluffs sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,339 of 15,516 and #45 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$64,092Council Bluffs, IA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Council Bluffs, IA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Council Bluffs, IA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
62,564
Median Income
$64,092
Median Home Value
$164,300
Median Age
39.0
Poverty Rate
8.7%
Labor force participation
60.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2873.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
420.8
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2452.3
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
17
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Council Bluffs's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
62,792 residents
2021
62,594 residents
2022
62,395 residents
2023
62,538 residents
2024
62,484 residents
2025
62,680 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
632
housing units authorized
Single-Family
58
detached homes
Multifamily
574
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
10.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
106
84
22
$25.5M
2020
119
55
64
$23.0M
2021
92
56
36
$19.9M
2022
95
67
28
$23.6M
2023
125
71
54
$32.3M
2024
632
58
574
$113.8M
Permit volume increased 496% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
17.1 minutes
Drive Alone
80.0%
Carpool
7.6%
Public Transit
0.9%
Walk
1.8%
Work from Home
7.8%
Other
1.9%
Based on 30,051 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Iowa statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $212
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Iowa at $212 (electricity about $95 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Iowa statewide averages, not a meter reading for Council Bluffs. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Iowa's BEA cost-of-living index is 87.8 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Council Bluffs is $989/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Iowa statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 39.7 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Iowa statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Council Bluffs sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Council Bluffs compares to similar-size Iowa 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.