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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-PALOS-PARK-IL · Palos Park, IL 4,832 pop · income 89th 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 Park
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Palos Park on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Robbins · lowest
37,594
Robbins · lowest
37,594 median HH income
20.2% of the leader · rank #1
Freedom Acres · near
126,250
Freedom Acres · near
126,250 median HH income
68.0% of the leader · rank #2
Platte Woods · near
126,250
Platte Woods · near
126,250 median HH income
68.0% of the leader · rank #3
Thiells · near
126,250
Thiells · near
126,250 median HH income
68.0% of the leader · rank #4
Palos Park · this city
126,263
Palos Park · this city
126,263 median HH income
68.0% of the leader · rank #5
Sewall's Point · near
126,268
Sewall's Point · near
126,268 median HH income
68.0% of the leader · rank #6
Lakewood · highest
185,774
Lakewood · highest
185,774 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 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: 4,832.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Palos Park - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Palos Park lands in the 89th percentile for household income and the 84th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
89th
percentile, household income
83rd
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
84th
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 Park, IL
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 4,832 residents in Palos Park, a small town within Illinois. Households in Palos Park report a median income of $126,263 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.2%. Palos Park's housing stock carries a median value of $469,900, and the median resident age is 60.6 years. 49.0% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 48.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 2 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 87% from five years earlier. Palos Park reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 529.7 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Illinois tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Illinois at 100.0 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,063 monthly. 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 Palos 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 schools and households to work and mobility to reported crime to housing and income to population change to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Palos Park, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, 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.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Palos Park?
The NCES join finds 2 public schools within the city match. 49.0% 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 matched institution count is small, so district boundaries and schools outside the city line may matter more than the municipal count suggests. Use the number as a coverage cue, then verify attendance zones with the district before making a household decision.
What does the journey to work look like in Palos 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 61.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Palos 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 529.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 77% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Which cities make useful reference points for Palos Park?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Beecher (4,837 residents, $101,957 income); Flora (4,860 residents, $50,588 income); Carmi (4,879 residents, $47,051 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Glendive, MT (4,831 residents); South Bound Brook, NJ (4,833 residents); King George, VA (4,833 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 Palos 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 2.2%, 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
$126,263
Home value
$469,900
Value / income
3.7×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Palos Park 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 -67 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 2 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
-1.4%
2025 estimate
4,805
2020 estimate
4,872
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
B+
City profile score · Palos Park, IL
79/100
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 A+
0 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income A
$126,263
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate A-
2.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share A-
49.0%
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 Park profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 97/100 (A+) · 0 /100k
Household income: 89/100 (A) · $126,263
Poverty rate: 84/100 (A-) · 2.2%
Bachelor's+ share: 83/100 (A-) · 49.0%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Palos Park sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Palos 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 - Palos Park highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Palos Park, IL (this city): home $469,900, crime 530/100k
Glendive, MT : home $176,900, crime 1,592/100k
Indian Wells, CA : home $1,002,200, crime 1,616/100k
Beecher, IL : home $241,400, crime 427/100k
Flora, IL : home $78,400, crime 1,004/100k
Carmi, IL : home $98,700, crime 1,574/100k
Lakewood, IL : home $518,500, crime 281/100k
Tuscola, IL : home $148,100, crime 891/100k
How does Palos Park compare to other US cities?
Palos Park measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income89% higher than other cities
Home value83% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety84% 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, Palos Park ranks #117 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 Palos 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 Palos Park near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Palos Park ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Palos Park only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#92 of 1,311
93rd percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#47 of 1,315
96th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#1,099 of 1,335
17th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#117 of 1,336
91st 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
89th percentile nationally for median household income · 84th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Palos Park's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Palos 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 Palos Park's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$469,90017th percentilemore affordable than 17% 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 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
#9,799 of 15,516
More affordable than 37% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#7,780 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.7×, Palos Park sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,799 of 15,516 and #7,780 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$126,263Palos Park, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Palos 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 Palos Park, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)49.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)48.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,832
Median Income
$126,263
Median Home Value
$469,900
Median Age
60.6
Poverty Rate
2.2%
Labor force participation
48.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
49.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
529.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
529.7
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
2
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Palos Park's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
4,872 residents
2021
4,821 residents
2022
4,768 residents
2023
4,772 residents
2024
4,809 residents
2025
4,805 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
2
housing units authorized
Single-Family
2
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
16
16
0
$4.3M
2020
16
16
0
$4.4M
2021
7
7
0
$6.0M
2022
7
7
0
$5.8M
2023
3
3
0
$4.7M
2024
2
2
0
$3.0M
Permit volume decreased 87% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
61.5%
Carpool
4.8%
Public Transit
2.3%
Walk
0.5%
Work from Home
29.9%
Other
1.0%
Based on 2,023 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 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 Palos 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 Palos Park sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Palos 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.