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Place dossier plate
SheetMA-WESTFIELD-MA · Westfield, MA 40,673 pop · income 64th 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 Westfield
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Westfield on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
State College · lowest
47,132
State College · lowest
47,132 median HH income
37.6% of the leader · rank #1
Westfield · this city
82,847
Westfield · this city
82,847 median HH income
66.1% of the leader · rank #2
Richlandtown · near
82,847
Richlandtown · near
82,847 median HH income
66.1% of the leader · rank #3
Northview · near
82,853
Northview · near
82,853 median HH income
66.1% of the leader · rank #4
Varnell · near
82,857
Varnell · near
82,857 median HH income
66.1% of the leader · rank #5
Melbourne · near
82,857
Melbourne · near
82,857 median HH income
66.1% of the leader · rank #6
Braintree · highest
125,305
Braintree · highest
125,305 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 Westfield 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: 40,673.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Westfield - the verdict
Nationally, Westfield sits in the 64th percentile for household income and the 64th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
64th
percentile, household income
64th
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
64th
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: Westfield, MA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 40,673 residents in Westfield, a small city within Massachusetts. Median household income here is $82,847 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.4%. Typical homes in Westfield are valued around $295,500, and the median resident age is 39.0 years. Educational attainment runs 32.6% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 57.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 43 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Stable), down 2% from five years earlier. Westfield reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 998.3 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Westfield's yearly average temperature at 48.7°F with 52.4 inches of precipitation per year.
Massachusetts carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Massachusetts scores 105.8 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. 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. Natural-hazard exposure scores 78.8 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Westfield'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 housing and income to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context to population change to schools and households to work and mobility to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Westfield, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, annual population history, local building permits.
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.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Westfield?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.4%, 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. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Westfield?
Within Massachusetts, the closest population matches are Woburn (41,205 residents, $107,754 income); Marlborough (41,398 residents, $95,047 income); Fitchburg (41,633 residents, $70,659 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Essex, MD (40,670 residents); State College, PA (40,669 residents); Cedar Falls, IA (40,662 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.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 48.7°F, with 52.4 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Massachusetts is 78.8 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.
Is Westfield growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +393 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 43 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Westfield?
The NCES join finds 12 public schools within the city match. 32.6% 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
12
Bachelor's degree+
32.6%
Poverty estimate
7.4%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Westfield?
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 80.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
2.0%
Work from home
7.5%
Drive alone
80.8%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 18,996 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Westfield?
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 998.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 56% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
806.9
Violent rate
191.4
Total reported rate
998.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Above median income · poverty 7.4% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
105.8 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, Massachusetts average
D
City profile score · Westfield, MA
48/100
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.
Household income C+
$82,847
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share C+
32.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate C-
7.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
191 /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.
Westfield profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 62/100 (C+) · $82,847
Bachelor's+ share: 62/100 (C+) · 32.6%
Poverty rate: 50/100 (C-) · 7.4%
Violent crime: 49/100 (D) · 191 /100k
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Where Westfield sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Westfield'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 - Westfield highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Westfield, MA (this city): home $295,500, crime 998/100k
State College, PA : home $414,400, crime 917/100k
Annapolis, MD : home $510,200, crime 2,903/100k
Lancaster, TX : home $229,900, crime 3,537/100k
Woburn, MA : home $641,800, crime 1,142/100k
Marlborough, MA : home $485,400, crime 1,458/100k
Fitchburg, MA : home $295,500, crime 1,831/100k
Chelsea, MA : home $476,500, crime 2,415/100k
Beverly, MA : home $621,900, crime 579/100k
Braintree, MA : home $623,200, crime 1,405/100k
How does Westfield compare to other US cities?
Here's how Westfield stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income64% higher than other cities
Home value64% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety64% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Massachusetts and the picture shifts: Westfield ranks #82 of 149 Massachusetts cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Westfield 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 Westfield near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Westfield ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Westfield only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#156 of 233
33rd percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#210 of 240
12th percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#68 of 247
72nd percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#189 of 247
23rd 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
64th percentile nationally for median household income · 64th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Westfield's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Westfield'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 Westfield's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$295,50036th percentilemore affordable than 36% 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
Westfield's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,244 of 15,516
More affordable than 40% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,561 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.6×, Westfield sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,244 of 15,516 and #1,561 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$82,847Westfield, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Westfield, 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 Westfield, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)32.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
40,673
Median Income
$82,847
Median Home Value
$295,500
Median Age
39.0
Poverty Rate
7.4%
Labor force participation
57.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
32.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
998.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
191.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
806.9
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
48.7°F
Annual Precipitation
52.4"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
12
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Westfield's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
40,153 residents
2021
40,559 residents
2022
40,426 residents
2023
40,261 residents
2024
40,452 residents
2025
40,546 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Stable
Total Permits (2024)
43
housing units authorized
Single-Family
43
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
44
44
0
$8.7M
2020
45
45
0
$8.9M
2021
52
52
0
$10.2M
2022
46
46
0
$9.1M
2023
40
40
0
$7.9M
2024
43
43
0
$8.5M
Permit volume decreased 2% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
80.8%
Carpool
4.8%
Public Transit
2.0%
Walk
3.1%
Work from Home
7.5%
Other
1.8%
Based on 18,996 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 Westfield. 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 Westfield 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 Westfield sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Westfield 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, 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.