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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-PROSPECT-HEIGHTS-IL · Prospect Heights, IL 15,681 pop · income 72nd 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 Prospect Heights
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Prospect Heights on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Opelousas · lowest
36,260
Opelousas · lowest
36,260 median HH income
20.2% of the leader · rank #1
Adams Lake · near
91,591
Adams Lake · near
91,591 median HH income
51.0% of the leader · rank #2
Prospect Heig… · this city
91,599
Prospect Heig… · this city
91,599 median HH income
51.0% of the leader · rank #3
Turin · near
91,602
Turin · near
91,602 median HH income
51.0% of the leader · rank #4
Merchantville · near
91,607
Merchantville · near
91,607 median HH income
51.0% of the leader · rank #5
Gibraltar · near
91,611
Gibraltar · near
91,611 median HH income
51.0% of the leader · rank #6
Springdale · highest
179,531
Springdale · highest
179,531 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 Prospect Heights 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: 15,681.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Prospect Heights - the verdict
Nationally, Prospect Heights sits in the 72nd percentile for household income and the 74th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
72nd
percentile, household income
72nd
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
74th
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: Prospect Heights, IL
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 15,681 residents in Prospect Heights, a small town within Illinois. Prospect Heights households earn a median of $91,599 annually, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 2.9%. Home values in Prospect Heights run a median of $347,500, and the median resident age is 41.0 years. About 36.3% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 69.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 3 residential building permits were authorized in Prospect Heights (Slowing), down 25% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Prospect Heights reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 747.3 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: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Illinois scores 100.0 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,063 per month statewide. 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 Prospect Heights'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 reported crime to schools and households to work and mobility to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Prospect Heights, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
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 Prospect Heights growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -438 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.7% 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.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Prospect Heights?
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 Illinois, the closest population matches are Washington (15,946 residents, $91,360 income); La Grange (15,999 residents, $154,556 income); Bradley (15,331 residents, $62,940 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Springdale, NJ (15,672 residents); Hillcrest Heights, MD (15,670 residents); Newton, IA (15,696 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Prospect Heights?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 747.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 67% 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.
What does the education layer cover for Prospect Heights?
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 4 public schools within the city match. 36.3% 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Prospect Heights?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.2%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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
70.2%
Work from home
16.3%
Public transit
1.9%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 8,764 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Prospect Heights?
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 3.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.8×
Home value
$347,500
Household income
$91,599
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
C+
City profile score · Prospect Heights, IL
63/100
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.
Poverty rate B+
2.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income B
$91,599
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share B-
36.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime C
159 /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.
Prospect Heights profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 79/100 (B+) · 2.9%
Household income: 71/100 (B) · $91,599
Bachelor's+ share: 69/100 (B-) · 36.3%
Violent crime: 56/100 (C) · 159 /100k
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Prospect Heights sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Prospect Heights'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 - Prospect Heights highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Prospect Heights, IL (this city): home $347,500, crime 747/100k
Newton, IA : home $151,600, crime 1,774/100k
Opelousas, LA : home $113,000, crime 6,388/100k
Whitewater, WI : home $211,800, crime 918/100k
Washington, IL : home $216,700, crime 1,225/100k
La Grange, IL : home $582,600, crime 963/100k
Bradley, IL : home $164,400, crime 2,608/100k
Dixon, IL : home $113,300, crime 652/100k
Fairview Heights, IL : home $166,800, crime 3,436/100k
How does Prospect Heights compare to other US cities?
Here's how Prospect Heights stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income72% higher than other cities
Home value72% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety74% 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: Prospect Heights ranks #183 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 Prospect Heights 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 Prospect Heights near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Prospect Heights ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Prospect Heights only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#291 of 1,311
78th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#103 of 1,315
92nd percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#1,029 of 1,335
22nd percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#231 of 1,336
83rd 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
72nd percentile nationally for median household income · 74th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Prospect Heights's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Prospect Heights'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 Prospect Heights's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$347,50028th percentilemore affordable than 28% 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
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,039 of 15,516
More affordable than 35% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,787 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.8×, Prospect Heights sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,039 of 15,516 and #1,787 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
$91,599Prospect Heights, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Prospect Heights, 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 Prospect Heights, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)36.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)69.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
15,681
Median Income
$91,599
Median Home Value
$347,500
Median Age
41.0
Poverty Rate
2.9%
Labor force participation
69.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
36.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
747.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
158.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
588.5
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
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Prospect Heights's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
15,990 residents
2021
15,712 residents
2022
15,496 residents
2023
15,465 residents
2024
15,573 residents
2025
15,552 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
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
4
4
0
$1.6M
2020
6
6
0
$3.9M
2021
4
4
0
$1.7M
2022
2
2
0
$1.3M
2023
4
4
0
$4.0M
2024
3
3
0
$1.7M
Permit volume decreased 25% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
70.2%
Carpool
10.5%
Public Transit
1.9%
Walk
0.1%
Work from Home
16.3%
Other
1.0%
Based on 8,764 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 Prospect Heights. 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 Prospect Heights 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 Prospect Heights sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Prospect Heights 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.