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Place dossier plate
SheetKS-GREAT-BEND-KS · Great Bend, KS 14,596 pop · income 25th pct · 8 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 Great Bend
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Great Bend on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Red Bluff · lowest
50,216
Red Bluff · lowest
50,216 median HH income
32.5% of the leader · rank #1
Sierra Blanca · near
53,319
Sierra Blanca · near
53,319 median HH income
34.5% of the leader · rank #2
Great Bend · this city
53,323
Great Bend · this city
53,323 median HH income
34.5% of the leader · rank #3
Sodus · near
53,324
Sodus · near
53,324 median HH income
34.5% of the leader · rank #4
Coal Grove · near
53,324
Coal Grove · near
53,324 median HH income
34.5% of the leader · rank #5
Hoosick Falls · near
53,325
Hoosick Falls · near
53,325 median HH income
34.5% of the leader · rank #6
Falls Church · highest
154,734
Falls Church · highest
154,734 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 Great Bend 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: 14,596.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Great Bend - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Great Bend places in the 25th percentile for household income and the 35th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
25th
percentile, household income
17th
percentile, home value
6th
percentile, median rent
35th
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: Great Bend, KS
Kansas's Great Bend is a small town, with 14,596 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Great Bend brings in $53,323 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 11.8%. Home values in Great Bend run a median of $118,700, and the median resident age is 37.0 years. 20.9% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 4 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 100% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1871.7 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 54.3°F with 27.3 inches of precipitation per year and 11.5 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Kansas run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Kansas at 90.1 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $947 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Kansas's average monthly utility costs around $217 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 29.9 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Great Bend'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 within-city variation to comparison shortlist to reported crime to climate and hazard context to population change 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 Great Bend, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, annual population history, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Within-city variation
What can 8 Census tracts reveal inside Great Bend?
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Great Bend?
Within Kansas, the closest population matches are McPherson (13,956 residents, $77,746 income); Andover (15,508 residents, $106,676 income); El Dorado (12,882 residents, $54,828 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Falls Church, VA (14,593 residents); Red Bluff, CA (14,592 residents); Swansea, IL (14,603 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 Great Bend?
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 1871.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 18% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
What physical conditions frame life in Great Bend?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 54.3°F, with 27.3 inches of precipitation and 11.5 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Kansas is 29.9 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.
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.
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.
Population change
Is Great Bend 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 -424 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 4 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
-2.9%
2025 estimate
14,266
2020 estimate
14,690
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the education layer cover for Great Bend?
The NCES join finds 7 public schools within the city match. 20.9% 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
7
Bachelor's degree+
20.9%
Poverty estimate
11.8%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Great Bend?
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 81.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.1%
Work from home
5.7%
Drive alone
81.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 6,849 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Great Bend?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 11.8%, 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. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
Household income
$53,323
Home value
$118,700
Value / income
2.2×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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 A
90.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
11.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
316 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$53,323
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Great Bend profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 37/100 (F) · 20.9%
Poverty rate: 33/100 (F) · 11.8%
Violent crime: 31/100 (F) · 316 /100k
Household income: 25/100 (F) · $53,323
Where Great Bend sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Great Bend'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 - Great Bend highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Great Bend, KS (this city): home $118,700, crime 1,872/100k
Falls Church, VA : home $1,005,400, crime 1,622/100k
Red Bluff, CA : home $271,100, crime 5,527/100k
Swansea, IL : home $211,700, crime 785/100k
Fraser, MI : home $193,600, crime 2,181/100k
McPherson, KS : home $204,300, crime 1,530/100k
Andover, KS : home $272,600, crime 1,397/100k
El Dorado, KS : home $113,800, crime 1,692/100k
Ottawa, KS : home $165,700, crime 1,260/100k
Arkansas City, KS : home $81,700, crime 2,573/100k
Winfield, KS : home $121,200, crime 3,197/100k
How does Great Bend compare to other US cities?
Where Great Bend sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income25% higher than other cities
Home value17% pricier than other cities
Median rent6% pricier than other cities
Safety35% 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 Kansas alone, Great Bend ranks #72 of 109 Kansas 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 Great Bend against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Kansas only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Kansas-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Great Bend near the bottom of Kansas's cities
Among the 552 Kansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Great Bend ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Great Bend only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#356 of 527
32nd percentile in Kansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 552
0th percentile in Kansas
Median Home Value
#188 of 527
64th percentile in Kansas
Poverty Rate
#145 of 552
73rd percentile in Kansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#260 of 552
52nd percentile in Kansas
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 Kansas only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
25th percentile nationally for median household income · 35th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Great Bend's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Great Bend'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 Great Bend's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$118,700Among the most affordablemore affordable than 83% 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
Great Bend's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#2,593 of 15,516
More affordable than 83% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#163 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.2×, Great Bend sits in the affordable band:
national rank #2,593 of 15,516 and #163 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
$53,323Great Bend, KS median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Great Bend, KS median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Great Bend, KS.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)11.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,596
Median Income
$53,323
Median Home Value
$118,700
Median Age
37.0
Poverty Rate
11.8%
Labor force participation
61.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1871.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
315.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1556.3
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
54.3°F
Annual Precipitation
27.3"
Annual Snowfall
11.5"
Schools
Total Schools
7
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Great Bend's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
14,690 residents
2021
14,585 residents
2022
14,454 residents
2023
14,374 residents
2024
14,342 residents
2025
14,266 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
4
housing units authorized
Single-Family
4
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
2
2
0
$0.4M
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
0
0
0
-
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
4
4
0
$1.0M
Permit volume increased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
81.5%
Carpool
8.0%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
3.6%
Work from Home
5.7%
Other
1.1%
Based on 6,849 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Kansas statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $217
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Kansas at $217 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Kansas statewide averages, not a meter reading for Great Bend. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Kansas's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.1 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Great Bend is $947/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Kansas statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 29.9 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Kansas statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Great Bend sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Great Bend compares to similar-size Kansas 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.