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Place dossier plate
SheetKY-RUSSELLVILLE-KY · Russellville, KY 7,244 pop · income 16th pct · 6 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 Russellville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Russellville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Morehead · lowest
35,000
Morehead · lowest
35,000 median HH income
19.5% of the leader · rank #1
Flint Creek · near
47,870
Flint Creek · near
47,870 median HH income
26.7% of the leader · rank #2
Russellville · this city
47,875
Russellville · this city
47,875 median HH income
26.7% of the leader · rank #3
Brilliant · near
47,877
Brilliant · near
47,877 median HH income
26.7% of the leader · rank #4
Littleton · near
47,879
Littleton · near
47,879 median HH income
26.7% of the leader · rank #5
Butler · near
47,880
Butler · near
47,880 median HH income
26.7% of the leader · rank #6
Pelham · highest
179,561
Pelham · highest
179,561 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 Russellville 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: 7,244.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Russellville - the verdict
Nationally, Russellville sits in the 16th percentile for household income and the 55th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
16th
percentile, household income
29th
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
55th
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: Russellville, KY
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 7,244 residents in Russellville, a small town within Kentucky. Russellville households earn a median of $47,875 annually, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 9.1%. Typical homes in Russellville are valued around $156,000, and the median resident age is 41.9 years. Educational attainment runs 13.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 50.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 8 residential building permits were authorized in Russellville (Rapid Growth), up 33% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Russellville reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1218.2 in FBI UCR data, below 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 57.0°F with 53.9 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in Kentucky run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Kentucky at 90.2 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $984 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Kentucky run around $225, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Natural-hazard exposure scores 44.2 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Russellville'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 schools and households to housing and income to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context to work and mobility to population change to reported crime to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Russellville, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Russellville?
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 8 public schools within the city match. 13.2% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Russellville?
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 3.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Russellville?
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 Flatwoods (7,281 residents, $60,467 income); Villa Hills (7,378 residents, $108,750 income); Union (7,494 residents, $139,013 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are North Patchogue, NY (7,243 residents); Ridley Park, PA (7,245 residents); Lake Hallie, WI (7,245 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 can 6 Census tracts reveal inside Russellville?
PlainCities matches 6 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 Russellville?
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 57.0°F, with 53.9 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Kentucky is 44.2 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)
44.2
Annual precipitation
53.9 in
Mean temperature
57.0°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What does the journey to work look like in Russellville?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 82.5%. 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.
Drive alone
82.5%
Work from home
3.5%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 2,731 workers age 16+.
Is Russellville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +263 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +3.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 8 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.
2020 estimate
7,191
2025 estimate
7,454
Period change
+3.7%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Russellville?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1218.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 47% 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
1218.2
Violent rate
93.7
Property rate
1124.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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.
Violent crime B
94 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate D
9.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$47,875
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
13.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Russellville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Violent crime: 72/100 (B) · 94 /100k
Poverty rate: 43/100 (D) · 9.1%
Household income: 17/100 (F) · $47,875
Bachelor's+ share: 15/100 (F) · 13.2%
Where Russellville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Russellville'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 - Russellville highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Russellville, KY (this city): home $156,000, crime 1,218/100k
Ridley Park, PA : home $261,900, crime 722/100k
Flatwoods, KY : home $112,200, crime 264/100k
Villa Hills, KY : home $339,800, crime 893/100k
Mount Sterling, KY : home $178,200, crime 1,413/100k
Pikeville, KY : home $301,300, crime 1,634/100k
Morehead, KY : home $176,300, crime 1,468/100k
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 Russellville compare to other US cities?
Here's how Russellville stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income16% higher than other cities
Home value29% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety55% 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 Kentucky alone, Russellville ranks #127 of 181 Kentucky 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 Russellville 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 Russellville near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Russellville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Russellville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#309 of 485
36th percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#222 of 484
54th percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#298 of 519
42nd percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#335 of 520
35th 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
16th percentile nationally for median household income · 55th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Russellville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Russellville'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 Russellville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$156,000Among the most affordablemore affordable than 71% 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
Russellville's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,942 of 15,516
More affordable than 49% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#6,523 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.3×, Russellville sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,942 of 15,516 and #6,523 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$47,875Russellville, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Russellville, 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 Russellville, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)13.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
7,244
Median Income
$47,875
Median Home Value
$156,000
Median Age
41.9
Poverty Rate
9.1%
Labor force participation
50.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
13.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1218.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
93.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1124.5
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
57.0°F
Annual Precipitation
53.9"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Russellville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
7,191 residents
2021
7,262 residents
2022
7,285 residents
2023
7,393 residents
2024
7,419 residents
2025
7,454 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Rapid Growth
Total Permits (2024)
8
housing units authorized
Single-Family
8
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
6
6
0
$0.9M
2020
7
7
0
$1.1M
2021
12
12
0
$1.6M
2022
9
9
0
$1.2M
2023
9
9
0
$1.2M
2024
8
8
0
$1.1M
Permit volume increased 33% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
82.5%
Carpool
11.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
3.5%
Other
2.5%
Based on 2,731 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 Russellville. 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 Russellville 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 Russellville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Russellville 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, 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.