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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-WOOD-DALE-IL · Wood Dale, IL 13,926 pop · income 71st 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 Wood Dale
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Wood Dale on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Forest Hill · lowest
59,653
Forest Hill · lowest
59,653 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #1
Wood Dale · this city
90,408
Wood Dale · this city
90,408 median HH income
50.7% of the leader · rank #2
Mechanicstown · near
90,414
Mechanicstown · near
90,414 median HH income
50.7% of the leader · rank #3
Kent · near
90,416
Kent · near
90,416 median HH income
50.7% of the leader · rank #4
Windsor Locks · near
90,417
Windsor Locks · near
90,417 median HH income
50.7% of the leader · rank #5
Alburnett · near
90,417
Alburnett · near
90,417 median HH income
50.7% of the leader · rank #6
Urbana · highest
178,231
Urbana · highest
178,231 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 Wood Dale 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: 13,926.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Wood Dale - the verdict
Wood Dale ranks in the 71st percentile for household income and the 56th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
71st
percentile, household income
66th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
56th
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: Wood Dale, IL
Illinois's Wood Dale is a small town, with 13,926 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Wood Dale report a median income of $90,408 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 3.4%. Home values in Wood Dale run a median of $303,400, and the median resident age is 42.0 years. Educational attainment runs 24.3% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 65.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 5 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 67% from five years earlier. Wood Dale reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1190.7 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. 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. Workers in Wood Dale report an average commute of 24.2 minutes, with 75.6% driving alone and 10.6% working from home. 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 Wood Dale'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 comparison shortlist to reported crime to housing and income to work and mobility 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 Wood Dale, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates.
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
Which cities make useful reference points for Wood Dale?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Beach Park (13,988 residents, $83,069 income); Channahon (13,854 residents, $121,458 income); Forest Park (14,000 residents, $81,323 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Forest Hill, TX (13,923 residents); Rocky Point, NY (13,931 residents); Willow Grove, PA (13,919 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Wood Dale?
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 1190.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 48% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
How far does income reach against housing in Wood Dale?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.4%, 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 does the journey to work look like in Wood Dale?
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 75.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 24.2 minutes.
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 Wood Dale?
The NCES join finds 4 public schools within the city match. 24.3% 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.
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
4
Bachelor's degree+
24.3%
Poverty estimate
3.4%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Is Wood Dale growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -136 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 5 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
-1.0%
2025 estimate
14,081
2020 estimate
14,217
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
C+
City profile score · Wood Dale, IL
62/100
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+
3.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income B
$90,408
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime B
102 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share D
24.3%
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.
Wood Dale profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 76/100 (B+) · 3.4%
Household income: 70/100 (B) · $90,408
Violent crime: 70/100 (B) · 102 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 47/100 (D) · 24.3%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Wood Dale sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Wood Dale'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 - Wood Dale highlighted among 26 peers.Read the chart values
Wood Dale, IL (this city): home $303,400, crime 1,191/100k
Forest Hill, TX : home $171,300, crime 1,743/100k
Channahon, IL : home $298,000, crime 571/100k
Forest Park, IL : home $293,800, crime 3,247/100k
Midlothian, IL : home $200,300, crime 1,765/100k
Shiloh, IL : home $276,900, crime 809/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Wood Dale compare to other US cities?
Wood Dale measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income71% higher than other cities
Home value66% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety56% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Illinois, Wood Dale ranks #274 of 455 Illinois cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Wood Dale 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 Wood Dale near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Wood Dale ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Wood Dale only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#298 of 1,311
77th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#145 of 1,315
89th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#989 of 1,335
25th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#424 of 1,336
68th 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
71st percentile nationally for median household income · 56th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Wood Dale's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Wood Dale'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 Wood Dale's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$303,40034th percentilemore affordable than 34% 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
Wood Dale's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,367 of 15,516
More affordable than 46% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,347 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.4×, Wood Dale sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,367 of 15,516 and #1,347 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
$90,408Wood Dale, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Wood Dale, 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 Wood Dale, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)24.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
13,926
Median Income
$90,408
Median Home Value
$303,400
Median Age
42.0
Poverty Rate
3.4%
Labor force participation
65.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
24.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1190.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
102.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1088.5
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
Wood Dale's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
14,217 residents
2021
14,101 residents
2022
14,008 residents
2023
14,028 residents
2024
14,094 residents
2025
14,081 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
5
housing units authorized
Single-Family
5
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
3
3
0
$1.3M
2020
3
3
0
$1.3M
2021
7
7
0
$2.4M
2022
2
2
0
$1.0M
2023
5
5
0
$2.0M
2024
5
5
0
$1.8M
Permit volume increased 67% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
24.2 minutes
Drive Alone
75.6%
Carpool
10.5%
Public Transit
1.2%
Walk
1.4%
Work from Home
10.6%
Other
0.7%
Based on 7,280 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 Wood Dale. 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 Wood Dale 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 Wood Dale sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Wood Dale 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.