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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-HICKORY-HILLS-IL · Hickory Hills, IL 14,718 pop · income 67th 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 Hickory Hills
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Hickory Hills on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Deming · lowest
35,920
Deming · lowest
35,920 median HH income
21.8% of the leader · rank #1
Holiday Valley · near
85,536
Holiday Valley · near
85,536 median HH income
51.9% of the leader · rank #2
Lower Allen · near
85,537
Lower Allen · near
85,537 median HH income
51.9% of the leader · rank #3
Hickory Hills · this city
85,541
Hickory Hills · this city
85,541 median HH income
51.9% of the leader · rank #4
Clifton Garde… · near
85,551
Clifton Garde… · near
85,551 median HH income
51.9% of the leader · rank #5
Midland · near
85,551
Midland · near
85,551 median HH income
51.9% of the leader · rank #6
Ramsey · highest
164,767
Ramsey · highest
164,767 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 Hickory Hills 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: 14,718.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Hickory Hills - the verdict
Hickory Hills ranks in the 67th percentile for household income and the 59th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
67th
percentile, household income
61st
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
59th
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: Hickory Hills, IL
Hickory Hills is a small town in Illinois, home to 14,718 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Hickory Hills report a median income of $85,541 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 4.3%. Typical homes in Hickory Hills are valued around $278,400, and the median resident age is 38.1 years. Educational attainment runs 25.6% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 65.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 3 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Stable), up 0% from five years earlier. Hickory Hills reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1124.2 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
Illinois tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 100.0 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,063 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Illinois's average monthly utility costs around $240 (state average). Natural-hazard exposure scores 54.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Hickory Hills'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 housing and income to comparison shortlist to population change to reported crime to work and mobility to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Hickory Hills, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, 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
How far does income reach against housing in Hickory Hills?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.3%, 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. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Hickory Hills?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Chatham (14,740 residents, $106,030 income); Antioch (14,751 residents, $118,635 income); Sterling (14,670 residents, $52,647 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Ramsey, NJ (14,722 residents); Lockhart, TX (14,708 residents); Deming, NM (14,735 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 Hickory Hills 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 -354 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 3 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Hickory Hills?
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 1124.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 51% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Hickory Hills?
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 75.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
3.6%
Work from home
7.2%
Drive alone
75.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 7,223 workers age 16+.
What does the education layer cover for Hickory Hills?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 25.6% 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
3
Bachelor's degree+
25.6%
Poverty estimate
4.3%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Above median income · poverty 4.3% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.0 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
C+
City profile score · Hickory Hills, IL
61/100
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.
Violent crime B
88 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate B
4.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income B-
$85,541
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share C-
25.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living D
100.0 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Hickory Hills profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 74/100 (B) · 88 /100k
Poverty rate: 70/100 (B) · 4.3%
Household income: 65/100 (B-) · $85,541
Bachelor's+ share: 50/100 (C-) · 25.6%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Hickory Hills sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Hickory Hills'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 - Hickory Hills highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Hickory Hills, IL (this city): home $278,400, crime 1,124/100k
Ramsey, NJ : home $665,700, crime 1,033/100k
Lockhart, TX : home $218,400, crime 1,706/100k
Hammonton, NJ : home $324,200, crime 1,315/100k
Alexander City, AL : home $135,900, crime 4,612/100k
Cedar Lake, IN : home $259,900, crime 328/100k
Chatham, IL : home $231,900, crime 597/100k
Antioch, IL : home $299,700, crime 570/100k
Sterling, IL : home $107,800, crime 1,653/100k
Morris, IL : home $244,400, crime 1,828/100k
Swansea, IL : home $211,700, crime 785/100k
Mount Vernon, IL : home $89,700, crime 1,336/100k
How does Hickory Hills compare to other US cities?
Here's how Hickory Hills stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income67% higher than other cities
Home value61% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety59% 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 Illinois alone, Hickory Hills ranks #264 of 455 Illinois 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 Hickory Hills against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Illinois only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Illinois-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Hickory Hills near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Hickory Hills ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Hickory Hills only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#336 of 1,311
74th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#185 of 1,315
86th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#898 of 1,335
32nd percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#391 of 1,336
71st percentile in Illinois
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 Illinois only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
67th percentile nationally for median household income · 59th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Hickory Hills's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Hickory Hills'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 Hickory Hills's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$278,40039th percentilemore affordable than 39% 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
Hickory Hills's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,926 of 15,516
More affordable than 49% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,239 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.3×, Hickory Hills sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,926 of 15,516 and #1,239 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
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
$85,541Hickory Hills, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Hickory Hills, IL median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Hickory Hills, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,718
Median Income
$85,541
Median Home Value
$278,400
Median Age
38.1
Poverty Rate
4.3%
Labor force participation
65.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1124.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
87.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1036.6
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
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Hickory Hills's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
14,455 residents
2021
14,204 residents
2022
14,022 residents
2023
14,000 residents
2024
14,116 residents
2025
14,101 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Stable
Total Permits (2024)
3
housing units authorized
Single-Family
3
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
3
3
0
$0.7M
2020
5
5
0
$1.2M
2021
8
2
6
$1.0M
2022
4
4
0
$1.0M
2023
11
6
5
$2.5M
2024
3
3
0
$0.8M
Permit volume increased 0% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
75.5%
Carpool
10.1%
Public Transit
3.6%
Walk
2.3%
Work from Home
7.2%
Other
1.3%
Based on 7,223 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Illinois statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $240
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Illinois at $240 (electricity about $100 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Illinois statewide averages, not a meter reading for Hickory Hills. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Illinois's BEA cost-of-living index is 100.0 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Hickory Hills is $1,063/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Illinois statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 54.5 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Illinois statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Hickory Hills sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Hickory Hills compares to similar-size Illinois 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.