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Place dossier plate
SheetKS-TOPEKA-KS · Topeka, KS 126,103 pop · income 29th pct · 46 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 Topeka
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Topeka on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Athens-Clarke… · lowest
51,655
Athens-Clarke… · lowest
51,655 median HH income
38.4% of the leader · rank #1
Watervliet · near
55,897
Watervliet · near
55,897 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #2
West Wareham · near
55,900
West Wareham · near
55,900 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #3
Topeka · this city
55,902
Topeka · this city
55,902 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #4
Pahoa · near
55,903
Pahoa · near
55,903 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #5
Cleveland · near
55,904
Cleveland · near
55,904 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #6
Thousand Oaks · highest
134,367
Thousand Oaks · highest
134,367 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 Topeka 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: 126,103.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Topeka - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Topeka places in the 29th percentile for household income and the 5th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
29th
percentile, household income
21st
percentile, home value
6th
percentile, median rent
5th
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: Topeka, KS
Topeka is a mid-sized U.S. city in Kansas, home to 126,103 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Topeka brings in $55,902 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 11.6%. Typical homes in Topeka are valued around $130,600, and the median resident age is 38.2 years. 29.1% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 58.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 106 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Growing), up 5% from five years earlier. Topeka's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 4499.2 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Kansas run below the national norm: the state registers 90.1 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $947 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Kansas run around $217, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Topeka workers runs 15.1 minutes, with 76.7% driving alone and 9.6% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 29.9 out of 100 (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Topeka'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 reported crime to schools and households to population change to within-city variation to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Topeka, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, matched public-school count, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Topeka?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 4499.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 97% higher 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.
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 42 public schools within the city match. 29.1% 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.
PlainCities matches 46 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Topeka?
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 Kansas, the closest population matches are Olathe (143,720 residents, $112,232 income); Kansas City (154,776 residents, $59,183 income); Lawrence (95,459 residents, $62,838 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Pearland, TX (125,983 residents); Simi Valley, CA (125,769 residents); Thousand Oaks, CA (125,676 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.
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 Topeka growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -632 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 106 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
2020 estimate
126,427
2025 estimate
125,795
Period change
-0.5%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Topeka?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 76.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 15.1 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
76.7%
Work from home
9.6%
Public transit
0.9%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 58,768 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Topeka?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 11.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.3×
Home value
$130,600
Household income
$55,902
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Below median income · poverty 11.6% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.1 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Kansas average
F
City profile score · Topeka, KS
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 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 C
29.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
11.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$55,902
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
857 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Topeka profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 56/100 (C) · 29.1%
Poverty rate: 33/100 (F) · 11.6%
Household income: 29/100 (F) · $55,902
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 857 /100k
Where Topeka sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Topeka'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 - Topeka highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Topeka, KS (this city): home $130,600, crime 4,499/100k
Pearland, TX : home $330,900, crime 1,536/100k
Simi Valley, CA : home $753,500, crime 1,053/100k
Thousand Oaks, CA : home $951,200, crime 1,123/100k
Allentown, PA : home $188,900, crime 1,841/100k
Palm Bay, FL : home $248,000, crime 1,365/100k
Athens-Clarke County, GA : home $271,800, crime 2,683/100k
Olathe, KS : home $340,600, crime 1,137/100k
Kansas City, KS : home $147,100, crime 4,654/100k
Lawrence, KS : home $269,500, crime 2,618/100k
Shawnee, KS : home $332,900, crime 2,049/100k
Lenexa, KS : home $368,800, crime 1,531/100k
Overland Park, KS : home $384,400, crime 1,946/100k
How does Topeka compare to other US cities?
Here's how Topeka stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income29% higher than other cities
Home value21% pricier than other cities
Median rent6% pricier than other cities
Safety5% 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 Kansas, Topeka ranks #105 of 109 Kansas 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 Topeka 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 Topeka near the bottom of Kansas's cities
Among the 552 Kansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Topeka ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Topeka only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#330 of 527
37th percentile in Kansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 552
0th percentile in Kansas
Median Home Value
#156 of 527
70th percentile in Kansas
Poverty Rate
#151 of 552
72nd percentile in Kansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#121 of 552
78th 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
29th percentile nationally for median household income · 5th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Topeka's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Topeka'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 Topeka's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$130,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 79% 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
Topeka's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#3,154 of 15,516
More affordable than 80% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#18 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 2.3×, Topeka sits in the affordable band:
national rank #3,154 of 15,516 and #18 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$55,902Topeka, KS median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Topeka, 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 Topeka, KS.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)29.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)11.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
126,103
Median Income
$55,902
Median Home Value
$130,600
Median Age
38.2
Poverty Rate
11.6%
Labor force participation
58.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
29.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
4499.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
856.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3642.7
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
42
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Topeka's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
126,427 residents
2021
126,179 residents
2022
125,481 residents
2023
125,509 residents
2024
125,677 residents
2025
125,795 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Growing
Total Permits (2024)
106
housing units authorized
Single-Family
45
detached homes
Multifamily
61
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
101
92
9
$16.6M
2020
264
112
152
$38.1M
2021
384
110
274
$62.9M
2022
80
80
0
$22.2M
2023
105
61
44
$27.9M
2024
106
45
61
$19.5M
Permit volume increased 5% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
15.1 minutes
Drive Alone
76.7%
Carpool
10.0%
Public Transit
0.9%
Walk
1.9%
Work from Home
9.6%
Other
0.9%
Based on 58,768 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 Topeka. 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 Topeka 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 Topeka sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Topeka 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, 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.