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Place dossier plate
SheetKY-FLORENCE-KY · Florence, KY 32,334 pop · income 48th pct · 30 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 Florence
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Florence on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hopkinsville · lowest
47,428
Hopkinsville · lowest
47,428 median HH income
45.3% of the leader · rank #1
Alhambra · near
68,500
Alhambra · near
68,500 median HH income
65.4% of the leader · rank #2
Burnettsville · near
68,500
Burnettsville · near
68,500 median HH income
65.4% of the leader · rank #3
Florence · this city
68,508
Florence · this city
68,508 median HH income
65.4% of the leader · rank #4
Wellington · near
68,510
Wellington · near
68,510 median HH income
65.4% of the leader · rank #5
Pettus · near
68,510
Pettus · near
68,510 median HH income
65.4% of the leader · rank #6
Spring Valley… · highest
104,808
Spring Valley… · highest
104,808 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 Florence 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: 32,334.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Florence - the verdict
Florence ranks in the 48th percentile for household income and the 11th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
48th
percentile, household income
42nd
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
11th
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: Florence, KY
32,334 people live in Florence, Kentucky - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Florence households earn a median of $68,508 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.2%. Typical homes in Florence are valued around $196,200, and the median resident age is 40.5 years. 26.3% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 62.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Florence's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 3445.0 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, above the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Kentucky run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Kentucky scores 90.2 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $984 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Kentucky run around $225, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 44.2 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Florence'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 work and mobility to comparison shortlist to schools and households to population change to within-city variation to housing and income to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Florence, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Florence?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 77.3%. 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. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Florence?
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 Kentucky, the closest population matches are Elizabethtown (31,870 residents, $56,250 income); Nicholasville (31,625 residents, $67,514 income); Hopkinsville (31,011 residents, $47,428 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Aiken, SC (32,334 residents); Buenaventura Lakes, FL (32,310 residents); Fairbanks, AK (32,242 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.
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 9 public schools within the city match. 26.3% 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.
PlainCities matches 30 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.
Population change
Is Florence growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,930 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +6.0% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. 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.
2020 estimate
32,088
2025 estimate
34,018
Period change
+6.0%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Florence?
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 2.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.9×
Home value
$196,200
Household income
$68,508
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Florence?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3445.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 51% 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.
Total reported rate
3445.0
Violent rate
231.9
Property rate
3213.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 6.2% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.2 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Kentucky average
C
City profile score · Florence, KY
57/100
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
90.2 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Poverty rate C
6.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share C-
26.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income D
$68,508
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime D
232 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Florence profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Poverty rate: 58/100 (C) · 6.2%
Bachelor's+ share: 52/100 (C-) · 26.3%
Household income: 47/100 (D) · $68,508
Violent crime: 43/100 (D) · 232 /100k
Where Florence sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Florence'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 - Florence highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Florence, KY (this city): home $196,200, crime 3,445/100k
Aiken, SC : home $261,800, crime 4,527/100k
Fairbanks, AK : home $255,700, crime 4,161/100k
Bay City, MI : home $89,900, crime 2,432/100k
Elizabethtown, KY : home $223,200, crime 835/100k
Nicholasville, KY : home $210,700, crime 1,610/100k
Hopkinsville, KY : home $140,200, crime 2,952/100k
Richmond, KY : home $205,900, crime 2,188/100k
Independence, KY : home $240,500, crime 343/100k
Jeffersontown, KY : home $236,800, crime 2,381/100k
How does Florence compare to other US cities?
Where Florence sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income48% higher than other cities
Home value42% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety11% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Kentucky and the picture shifts: Florence ranks #175 of 181 Kentucky cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Florence against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Kentucky only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Kentucky-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Florence near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Florence ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Florence only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#168 of 485
65th percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#149 of 484
69th percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#352 of 519
32nd percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#173 of 520
67th percentile in Kentucky
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 Kentucky only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
48th percentile nationally for median household income · 11th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Florence's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Florence'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 Florence's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$196,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 58% 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
Florence's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,929 of 15,516
More affordable than 62% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#718 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.9×, Florence sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,929 of 15,516 and #718 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
$68,508Florence, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Florence, KY median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Florence, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)26.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
32,334
Median Income
$68,508
Median Home Value
$196,200
Median Age
40.5
Poverty Rate
6.2%
Labor force participation
62.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
26.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3445.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
231.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3213.1
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
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Florence's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
32,088 residents
2021
32,297 residents
2022
32,700 residents
2023
33,144 residents
2024
33,617 residents
2025
34,018 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
77.3%
Carpool
11.6%
Public Transit
0.5%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
8.9%
Other
1.7%
Based on 16,377 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Kentucky statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Kentucky at $225 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Kentucky statewide averages, not a meter reading for Florence. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Kentucky's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.2 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Florence is $984/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Kentucky statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 44.2 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Kentucky statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Florence sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Florence compares to similar-size Kentucky 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.