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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-PALOS-HILLS-IL · Palos Hills, IL 18,139 pop · income 66th 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 Palos Hills
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Palos Hills on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
East St. Louis · lowest
30,992
East St. Louis · lowest
30,992 median HH income
16.1% of the leader · rank #1
Palos Hills · this city
83,969
Palos Hills · this city
83,969 median HH income
43.6% of the leader · rank #2
Long Beach · near
83,969
Long Beach · near
83,969 median HH income
43.6% of the leader · rank #3
Sand Point · near
83,973
Sand Point · near
83,973 median HH income
43.6% of the leader · rank #4
Hopelawn · near
83,977
Hopelawn · near
83,977 median HH income
43.6% of the leader · rank #5
Oologah · near
83,977
Oologah · near
83,977 median HH income
43.6% of the leader · rank #6
Pinecrest · highest
192,477
Pinecrest · highest
192,477 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 Palos 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: 18,139.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Palos Hills - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Palos Hills places in the 66th percentile for household income and the 86th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
66th
percentile, household income
58th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
86th
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: Palos Hills, IL
Palos Hills is a small town in Illinois, home to 18,139 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Palos Hills brings in $83,969 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.6%. Home values in Palos Hills run a median of $259,200, and the median resident age is 42.5 years. About 25.0% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 59.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 11 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 83% from five years earlier. Palos Hills reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 479.1 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. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,063 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Illinois run around $240, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 54.5 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Palos 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 work and mobility to housing and income to reported crime to comparison shortlist to schools and households to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Palos Hills, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history.
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. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Palos 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 74.3%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
How far does income reach against housing in Palos Hills?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.6%, 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Palos 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 479.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 79% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Which cities make useful reference points for Palos Hills?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Bourbonnais (18,109 residents, $81,017 income); Shorewood (18,218 residents, $122,648 income); Franklin Park (18,233 residents, $76,009 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Pinecrest, FL (18,138 residents); Franconia, VA (18,141 residents); Steubenville, OH (18,144 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Palos Hills?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 25.0% 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+
25.0%
Poverty estimate
6.6%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Is Palos 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 -433 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 11 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
-2.3%
2025 estimate
18,028
2020 estimate
18,461
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 6.6% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.0 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
C
City profile score · Palos Hills, IL
58/100
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+
68 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income C+
$83,969
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C
6.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share D
25.0%
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.
Palos Hills profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 79/100 (B+) · 68 /100k
Household income: 63/100 (C+) · $83,969
Poverty rate: 55/100 (C) · 6.6%
Bachelor's+ share: 49/100 (D) · 25.0%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Palos Hills sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Palos 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 - Palos Hills highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Palos Hills, IL (this city): home $259,200, crime 479/100k
Steubenville, OH : home $128,000, crime 2,999/100k
Menasha, WI : home $169,200, crime 1,061/100k
White Settlement, TX : home $176,500, crime 2,210/100k
Bourbonnais, IL : home $242,600, crime 821/100k
Shorewood, IL : home $324,600, crime 911/100k
Franklin Park, IL : home $261,700, crime 1,576/100k
Sycamore, IL : home $254,200, crime 1,053/100k
Bellwood, IL : home $219,600, crime 1,504/100k
How does Palos Hills compare to other US cities?
Where Palos Hills sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income66% higher than other cities
Home value58% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety86% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Illinois and the picture shifts: Palos Hills ranks #103 of 455 Illinois cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Palos 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 Palos Hills near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Palos Hills ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Palos Hills only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#357 of 1,311
73rd percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#215 of 1,315
84th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#717 of 1,335
46th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#405 of 1,336
69th 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
66th percentile nationally for median household income · 86th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Palos Hills's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Palos 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 Palos Hills's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$259,20042nd percentilemore affordable than 42% 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
Palos Hills's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,130 of 15,516
More affordable than 54% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,028 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.1×, Palos Hills sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,130 of 15,516 and #1,028 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
$83,969Palos Hills, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Palos 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 Palos Hills, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)59.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
18,139
Median Income
$83,969
Median Home Value
$259,200
Median Age
42.5
Poverty Rate
6.6%
Labor force participation
59.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
479.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
68.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
410.7
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
Palos Hills's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
18,461 residents
2021
18,140 residents
2022
17,897 residents
2023
17,907 residents
2024
18,032 residents
2025
18,028 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
11
housing units authorized
Single-Family
11
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
6
6
0
$1.7M
2020
7
7
0
$2.1M
2021
5
5
0
$1.4M
2022
23
23
0
$4.9M
2023
4
4
0
$1.3M
2024
11
11
0
$2.7M
Permit volume increased 83% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
74.3%
Carpool
9.8%
Public Transit
3.3%
Walk
0.6%
Work from Home
11.6%
Based on 8,594 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 Palos 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 Palos 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 Palos Hills sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Palos 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.