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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-HIGHLAND-PARK-IL · Highland Park, IL 30,229 pop · income 96th 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 Highland Park
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Highland Park on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Morgantown · lowest
42,245
Morgantown · lowest
42,245 median HH income
26.1% of the leader · rank #1
Glenmoore · near
161,818
Glenmoore · near
161,818 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
Mount Hermon · near
161,821
Mount Hermon · near
161,821 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #3
Highland Park · this city
161,875
Highland Park · this city
161,875 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #4
Mahinahina · near
161,875
Mahinahina · near
161,875 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #5
Olde Stockdale · near
161,923
Olde Stockdale · near
161,923 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #6
Stony Brook · highest
162,054
Stony Brook · highest
162,054 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 Highland Park 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: 30,229.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Highland Park - the verdict
Nationally, Highland Park sits in the 96th percentile for household income and the 70th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
96th
percentile, household income
89th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
70th
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: Highland Park, IL
Illinois's Highland Park is a small city, with 30,229 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Highland Park brings in $161,875 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 1.2%. Highland Park's housing stock carries a median value of $594,400, and the median resident age is 46.0 years. Educational attainment runs 76.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 62.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 91 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 60% from five years earlier. Highland Park reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 861.1 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).
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. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,063 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $240 across Illinois, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. The average commute for Highland Park workers runs 21.0 minutes, with 62.2% driving alone and 25.2% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 54.5 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Highland Park'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 schools and households to work and mobility to housing and income 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 Highland Park, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, matched public-school count, 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.
1. Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Highland Park?
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 861.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 62% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
What does the education layer cover for Highland Park?
The NCES join finds 10 public schools within the city match. 76.1% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Highland Park?
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 62.2%. The reported mean trip to work is 21.0 minutes.
Which cities make useful reference points for Highland Park?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Niles (30,262 residents, $78,563 income); Gurnee (30,486 residents, $121,410 income); Algonquin (29,904 residents, $131,753 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Middletown, NY (30,227 residents); Austintown, OH (30,215 residents); Morgantown, WV (30,273 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Highland Park?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 1.2%, 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.
Household income
$161,875
Home value
$594,400
Value / income
3.7×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Highland Park growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +608 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +2.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 91 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
+2.0%
2025 estimate
30,767
2020 estimate
30,159
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Top-decile income · poverty 1.2% (Very low poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.0 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
A-
City profile score · Highland Park, IL
83/100
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 A+
$161,875
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A+
76.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate A+
1.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime A-
50 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
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.
Highland Park profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 100/100 (A+) · $161,875
Bachelor's+ share: 100/100 (A+) · 76.1%
Poverty rate: 91/100 (A+) · 1.2%
Violent crime: 84/100 (A-) · 50 /100k
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Highland Park sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Highland Park'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 - Highland Park highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Highland Park, IL (this city): home $594,400, crime 861/100k
Middletown, NY : home $271,000, crime 1,514/100k
Austintown, OH : home $133,000, crime 1,485/100k
Morgantown, WV : home $238,200, crime 2,170/100k
Newark, DE : home $357,600, crime 2,308/100k
Brownsburg, IN : home $282,800, crime 663/100k
Niles, IL : home $350,900, crime 2,278/100k
Gurnee, IL : home $331,100, crime 2,410/100k
Algonquin, IL : home $324,000, crime 1,238/100k
North Chicago, IL : home $147,800, crime 742/100k
Galesburg, IL : home $89,800, crime 3,478/100k
Lake in the Hills, IL : home $296,400, crime 508/100k
How does Highland Park compare to other US cities?
Here's how Highland Park stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income96% higher than other cities
Home value89% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety70% 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, Highland Park ranks #204 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 Highland Park 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 Highland Park near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Highland Park ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Highland Park only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#35 of 1,311
97th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#31 of 1,315
98th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#1,193 of 1,335
10th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#18 of 1,336
99th 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
96th percentile nationally for median household income · 70th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Highland Park's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Highland Park'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 Highland Park's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$594,40011th percentilemore affordable than 11% 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
Highland Park's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,622 of 15,516
More affordable than 38% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,659 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.7×, Highland Park sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,622 of 15,516 and #1,659 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
$161,875Highland Park, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Highland Park, 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 Highland Park, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)76.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)1.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
30,229
Median Income
$161,875
Median Home Value
$594,400
Median Age
46.0
Poverty Rate
1.2%
Labor force participation
62.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
76.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
861.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
49.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
811.6
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
10
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Highland Park's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
30,159 residents
2021
30,216 residents
2022
30,270 residents
2023
30,455 residents
2024
30,648 residents
2025
30,767 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
91
housing units authorized
Single-Family
22
detached homes
Multifamily
69
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
57
21
36
$19.5M
2020
77
26
51
$26.2M
2021
95
28
67
$30.5M
2022
107
24
83
$31.4M
2023
87
21
66
$26.1M
2024
91
22
69
$27.3M
Permit volume increased 60% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
21.0 minutes
Drive Alone
62.2%
Carpool
2.7%
Public Transit
6.3%
Walk
2.4%
Work from Home
25.2%
Other
1.2%
Based on 14,591 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 Highland Park. 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 Highland Park 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 Highland Park sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Highland Park 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.