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Place dossier plate
SheetIN-SHELBYVILLE-IN · Shelbyville, IN 19,866 pop · income 33rd pct · 10 tracts
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 Shelbyville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Shelbyville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Logansport · lowest
46,363
Logansport · lowest
46,363 median HH income
27.0% of the leader · rank #1
El Paso · near
58,529
El Paso · near
58,529 median HH income
34.0% of the leader · rank #2
Edenborn · near
58,531
Edenborn · near
58,531 median HH income
34.0% of the leader · rank #3
Shelbyville · this city
58,532
Shelbyville · this city
58,532 median HH income
34.0% of the leader · rank #4
Nashwauk · near
58,533
Nashwauk · near
58,533 median HH income
34.0% of the leader · rank #5
Pickens · near
58,534
Pickens · near
58,534 median HH income
34.0% of the leader · rank #6
Agoura Hills · highest
171,944
Agoura Hills · highest
171,944 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 Shelbyville 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: 19,866.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Shelbyville - the verdict
Shelbyville ranks in the 33rd percentile for household income and the 53rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
33rd
percentile, household income
27th
percentile, home value
27th
percentile, median rent
53rd
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: Shelbyville, IN
Indiana's Shelbyville is a small town, with 19,866 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Shelbyville report a median income of $58,532 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 14.9%. Typical homes in Shelbyville are valued around $151,100, and the median resident age is 35.5 years. 17.1% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 254 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 647% from five years earlier. Shelbyville reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1275.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Shelbyville's yearly average temperature at 54.2°F with 43.1 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in Indiana run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Indiana at 93.3 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,096 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Indiana's average monthly utility costs around $235 (state average). Workers in Shelbyville report an average commute of 19.5 minutes, with 78.1% driving alone and 6.8% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 45.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Shelbyville'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 schools and households to within-city variation to climate and hazard context to reported crime to housing and income to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Shelbyville, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
Is Shelbyville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,074 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 254 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 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Shelbyville?
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 Indiana, the closest population matches are Seymour (21,536 residents, $63,388 income); St. John (21,639 residents, $127,449 income); Logansport (17,766 residents, $46,363 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Miamisburg, OH (19,859 residents); Oroville, CA (19,855 residents); Plattsburgh, NY (19,878 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 does the education layer cover for Shelbyville?
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 10 public schools within the city match. 17.1% 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.
What can 10 Census tracts reveal inside Shelbyville?
PlainCities matches 10 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
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.
Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Shelbyville?
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 54.2°F, with 43.1 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Indiana is 45.5 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
45.5
Annual precipitation
43.1 in
Mean temperature
54.2°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Shelbyville?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1275.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 44% 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.
Total reported rate
1275.7
Violent rate
255.1
Property rate
1020.6
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Shelbyville?
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 2.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 14.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.6×
Home value
$151,100
Household income
$58,532
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Shelbyville?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 78.1%. The reported mean trip to work is 19.5 minutes.
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.
Drive alone
78.1%
Work from home
6.8%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 9,407 workers age 16+.
Below median income · poverty 14.9% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
93.3 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Indiana average
F
City profile score · Shelbyville, IN
39/100
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.
Cost of living B
93.3 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime D
255 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$58,532
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
17.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
14.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Shelbyville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 72/100 (B) · 93.3 index
Violent crime: 40/100 (D) · 255 /100k
Household income: 32/100 (F) · $58,532
Bachelor's+ share: 26/100 (F) · 17.1%
Poverty rate: 23/100 (F) · 14.9%
Where Shelbyville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Shelbyville'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 - Shelbyville highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Shelbyville, IN (this city): home $151,100, crime 1,276/100k
Miamisburg, OH : home $203,700, crime 1,618/100k
Oroville, CA : home $280,600, crime 4,800/100k
Universal City, TX : home $249,400, crime 2,361/100k
Agoura Hills, CA : home $1,072,200, crime 1,019/100k
Seymour, IN : home $153,300, crime 1,610/100k
St. John, IN : home $370,800, crime 153/100k
Logansport, IN : home $84,600, crime 1,286/100k
Clarksville, IN : home $172,700, crime 3,527/100k
La Porte, IN : home $143,800, crime 1,848/100k
Lebanon, IN : home $179,200, crime 1,296/100k
How does Shelbyville compare to other US cities?
Shelbyville measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income33% higher than other cities
Home value27% pricier than other cities
Median rent27% pricier than other cities
Safety53% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Indiana and the picture shifts: Shelbyville ranks #63 of 110 Indiana cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Shelbyville against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Indiana only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Indiana-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Shelbyville near the bottom of Indiana's cities
Among the 850 Indiana cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Shelbyville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Shelbyville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#458 of 766
40th percentile in Indiana
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 850
0th percentile in Indiana
Median Home Value
#317 of 771
59th percentile in Indiana
Poverty Rate
#159 of 849
81st percentile in Indiana
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#359 of 850
58th percentile in Indiana
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 Indiana only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
33rd percentile nationally for median household income · 53rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Shelbyville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Shelbyville'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 Shelbyville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$151,100Among the most affordablemore affordable than 73% 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
Shelbyville's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,415 of 15,516
More affordable than 72% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#425 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.6×, Shelbyville sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,415 of 15,516 and #425 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
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
$58,532Shelbyville, IN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Shelbyville, IN median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Shelbyville, IN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)17.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)14.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
19,866
Median Income
$58,532
Median Home Value
$151,100
Median Age
35.5
Poverty Rate
14.9%
Labor force participation
61.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
17.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1275.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
255.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1020.6
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
54.2°F
Annual Precipitation
43.1"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
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
Shelbyville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
20,130 residents
2021
20,170 residents
2022
20,284 residents
2023
20,612 residents
2024
20,821 residents
2025
21,204 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
254
housing units authorized
Single-Family
105
detached homes
Multifamily
149
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
12.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
34
34
0
$5.6M
2020
47
47
0
$10.0M
2021
99
91
8
$23.1M
2022
278
98
180
$63.3M
2023
65
54
11
$19.6M
2024
254
105
149
$55.8M
Permit volume increased 647% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
19.5 minutes
Drive Alone
78.1%
Carpool
10.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
3.2%
Work from Home
6.8%
Other
1.4%
Based on 9,407 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Indiana statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $235
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Indiana at $235 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Indiana statewide averages, not a meter reading for Shelbyville. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Indiana's BEA cost-of-living index is 93.3 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Shelbyville is $1,096/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Indiana statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 45.5 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Indiana statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Shelbyville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Shelbyville compares to similar-size Indiana 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, NOAA Climate Normals, 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.