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Place dossier plate
SheetMA-CAMBRIDGE-MA · Cambridge, MA 117,794 pop · income 89th pct
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 Cambridge
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Cambridge on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Fall River · lowest
53,933
Fall River · lowest
53,933 median HH income
42.6% of the leader · rank #1
Durham · near
126,406
Durham · near
126,406 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
Seabeck · near
126,442
Seabeck · near
126,442 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #3
Odenton · near
126,455
Odenton · near
126,455 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #4
Cambridge · this city
126,469
Cambridge · this city
126,469 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #5
Wacousta · highest
126,471
Wacousta · highest
126,471 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
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 Cambridge 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: 117,794.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Cambridge - the verdict
Cambridge ranks in the 89th percentile for household income and the 15th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
89th
percentile, household income
97th
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
15th
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: Cambridge, MA
Cambridge is a mid-sized U.S. city in Massachusetts, home to 117,794 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $126,469 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 7.2%. Cambridge's housing stock carries a median value of $1,040,500, and the median resident age is 30.5 years. Educational attainment runs 80.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 67.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 489 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Slowing), down 23% from five years earlier. Cambridge's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3081.0 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Massachusetts carries a cost-of-living premium: the state registers 105.8 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Above Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,261 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Massachusetts run around $330, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Cambridge workers runs 18.7 minutes, with 20.9% driving alone and 28.3% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 78.8 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Cambridge'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 work and mobility to comparison shortlist to housing and income to reported crime to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Cambridge, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, local building permits, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Cambridge?
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 20 public schools within the city match. 80.2% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Cambridge?
Working from home is the largest reported mode at 28.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 18.7 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. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Which cities make useful reference points for Cambridge?
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 Massachusetts, the closest population matches are Lowell (114,799 residents, $76,205 income); Brockton (105,080 residents, $77,089 income); Quincy (101,361 residents, $95,711 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are North Charleston, SC (117,460 residents); Richardson, TX (118,269 residents); Billings, MT (118,321 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Cambridge?
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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 8.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Cambridge?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3081.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 35% 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
3081.0
Violent rate
436.7
Property rate
2644.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Cambridge growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +6,386 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 489 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
116,202
2025 estimate
122,588
Period change
+5.5%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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.
Bachelor's+ share A+
80.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A
$126,469
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C-
7.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
437 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
105.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Cambridge profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 100/100 (A+) · 80.2%
Household income: 89/100 (A) · $126,469
Poverty rate: 51/100 (C-) · 7.2%
Violent crime: 20/100 (F) · 437 /100k
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Where Cambridge sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Cambridge'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 - Cambridge highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Cambridge, MA (this city): home $1,040,500, crime 3,081/100k
North Charleston, SC : home $267,700, crime 4,766/100k
Richardson, TX : home $405,600, crime 1,980/100k
Billings, MT : home $311,800, crime 3,830/100k
Wilmington, NC : home $350,300, crime 3,998/100k
Lowell, MA : home $395,100, crime 2,195/100k
Brockton, MA : home $405,500, crime 1,945/100k
Quincy, MA : home $598,100, crime 1,668/100k
Lynn, MA : home $472,600, crime 1,745/100k
New Bedford, MA : home $324,400, crime 1,712/100k
Fall River, MA : home $357,800, crime 2,135/100k
How does Cambridge compare to other US cities?
Cambridge measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income89% higher than other cities
Home value97% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety15% 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 Massachusetts, Cambridge ranks #145 of 149 Massachusetts 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 Cambridge against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Massachusetts only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Massachusetts-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Cambridge near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Cambridge ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Cambridge only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#57 of 233
76th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#15 of 240
94th percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#70 of 247
72nd percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#11 of 247
95th percentile in Massachusetts
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 Massachusetts only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
89th percentile nationally for median household income · 15th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Cambridge's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Cambridge'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 Cambridge's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,040,5003rd percentilemore affordable than 3% 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
Cambridge's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,096 of 15,516
More affordable than 3% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#696 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 8.2×, Cambridge sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,096 of 15,516 and #696 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$126,469Cambridge, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Cambridge, MA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Cambridge, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)80.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
117,794
Median Income
$126,469
Median Home Value
$1,040,500
Median Age
30.5
Poverty Rate
7.2%
Labor force participation
67.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
80.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3081.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
436.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2644.3
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.
Schools
Total Schools
20
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Cambridge's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
116,202 residents
2021
112,971 residents
2022
119,861 residents
2023
121,186 residents
2024
121,837 residents
2025
122,588 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
489
housing units authorized
Single-Family
23
detached homes
Multifamily
466
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
4.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
635
34
601
$120.1M
2020
546
35
511
$102.5M
2021
661
43
618
$124.7M
2022
543
36
507
$102.4M
2023
121
11
110
$58.4M
2024
489
23
466
$333.0M
Permit volume decreased 23% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
18.7 minutes
Drive Alone
20.9%
Carpool
3.1%
Public Transit
19.4%
Walk
19.3%
Work from Home
28.3%
Other
9.0%
Based on 69,475 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Massachusetts statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $330
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Massachusetts at $330 (electricity about $160 , water and sewer about $60 ).
These are Massachusetts statewide averages, not a meter reading for Cambridge. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Massachusetts's BEA cost-of-living index is 105.8 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Cambridge is $2,261/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Massachusetts statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 78.8 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Massachusetts statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Cambridge sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Cambridge compares to similar-size Massachusetts 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.