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
SheetIA-URBANDALE-IA · Urbandale, IA 46,026 pop · income 84th 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 Urbandale
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Urbandale on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Huntington · lowest
43,146
Huntington · lowest
43,146 median HH income
18.0% of the leader · rank #1
Wekiwa Springs · near
113,067
Wekiwa Springs · near
113,067 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #2
West Belmar · near
113,083
West Belmar · near
113,083 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #3
Urbandale · this city
113,086
Urbandale · this city
113,086 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #4
Berkley · near
113,103
Berkley · near
113,103 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #5
Torrance · near
113,105
Torrance · near
113,105 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #6
Potomac · highest
239,205
Potomac · highest
239,205 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 Urbandale 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: 46,026.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Urbandale - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Urbandale lands in the 84th percentile for household income and the 76th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
84th
percentile, household income
68th
percentile, home value
11th
percentile, median rent
76th
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: Urbandale, IA
Urbandale is a small city in Iowa, home to 46,026 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Urbandale households earn a median of $113,086 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.5%. Typical homes in Urbandale are valued around $318,800, and the median resident age is 38.7 years. 51.4% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 68.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 384 residential building permits were authorized in Urbandale (Building Boom), up 195% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Urbandale reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 723.7 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).
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). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $989 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Iowa run around $212, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in Urbandale report an average commute of 15.6 minutes, with 74.0% driving alone and 15.9% 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 Urbandale'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 population change to comparison shortlist to housing and income to schools and households to reported crime to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Urbandale, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, commute-mode shares.
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
Is Urbandale growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +2,982 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +6.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 384 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 upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Which cities make useful reference points for Urbandale?
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 Marion (41,690 residents, $87,105 income); Cedar Falls (40,662 residents, $74,165 income); Bettendorf (39,297 residents, $102,917 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Strongsville, OH (46,022 residents); Arlington, MA (46,015 residents); Charlottesville, VA (45,863 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Urbandale?
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 2.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What does the education layer cover for Urbandale?
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 9 public schools within the city match. 51.4% 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.
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 Urbandale?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 723.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 68% lower 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.
Total reported rate
723.7
Violent rate
89.1
Property rate
634.6
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Urbandale?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 74.0%. The reported mean trip to work is 15.6 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. 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.
Drive alone
74.0%
Work from home
15.9%
Public transit
0.4%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 23,935 workers age 16+.
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.
Bachelor's+ share A
51.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A-
$113,086
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime B
89 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate B-
4.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Urbandale profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 94/100 (A+) · 87.8 index
Bachelor's+ share: 85/100 (A) · 51.4%
Household income: 83/100 (A-) · $113,086
Violent crime: 73/100 (B) · 89 /100k
Poverty rate: 69/100 (B-) · 4.5%
Where Urbandale sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Urbandale'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 - Urbandale highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Urbandale, IA (this city): home $318,800, crime 724/100k
Strongsville, OH : home $279,600, crime 1,355/100k
Arlington, MA : home $885,000, crime 490/100k
Charlottesville, VA : home $448,400, crime 3,550/100k
Huntington, WV : home $118,800, crime 4,403/100k
Marion, IA : home $230,800, crime 620/100k
Bettendorf, IA : home $295,600, crime 972/100k
Dubuque, IA : home $193,100, crime 1,836/100k
Council Bluffs, IA : home $164,300, crime 2,873/100k
Marshalltown, IA : home $117,100, crime 2,071/100k
How does Urbandale compare to other US cities?
Urbandale measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income84% higher than other cities
Home value68% pricier than other cities
Median rent11% pricier than other cities
Safety76% 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 Iowa, Urbandale ranks #60 of 141 Iowa 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 Urbandale 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 Urbandale near the bottom of Iowa's cities
Among the 858 Iowa cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Urbandale ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Urbandale only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#29 of 845
97th percentile in Iowa
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 858
0th percentile in Iowa
Median Home Value
#24 of 849
97th percentile in Iowa
Poverty Rate
#513 of 858
39th percentile in Iowa
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#28 of 858
97th 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
84th percentile nationally for median household income · 76th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Urbandale's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Urbandale'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 Urbandale's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$318,80032nd percentilemore affordable than 32% 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
Urbandale's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,689 of 15,516
More affordable than 63% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#672 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.8×, Urbandale sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,689 of 15,516 and #672 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$113,086Urbandale, IA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Urbandale, 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 Urbandale, IA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)51.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)68.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
46,026
Median Income
$113,086
Median Home Value
$318,800
Median Age
38.7
Poverty Rate
4.5%
Labor force participation
68.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
51.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
723.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
89.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
634.6
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
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Urbandale's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
45,588 residents
2021
46,100 residents
2022
46,770 residents
2023
47,073 residents
2024
47,926 residents
2025
48,570 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
384
housing units authorized
Single-Family
338
detached homes
Multifamily
46
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
8.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
130
130
0
$39.4M
2020
325
246
79
$89.6M
2021
497
334
163
$147.5M
2022
216
188
28
$71.4M
2023
291
198
93
$94.5M
2024
384
338
46
$155.6M
Permit volume increased 195% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
15.6 minutes
Drive Alone
74.0%
Carpool
7.2%
Public Transit
0.4%
Walk
0.6%
Work from Home
15.9%
Other
1.9%
Based on 23,935 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 Urbandale. 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 Urbandale 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 Urbandale sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Urbandale 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.