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Place dossier plate
SheetMD-CAMBRIDGE-MD · Cambridge, MD 13,094 pop · income 14th pct · 10 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 Cambridge
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Cambridge on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Jackson · lowest
46,250
Jackson · lowest
46,250 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #1
Chefornak · near
46,250
Chefornak · near
46,250 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #2
Mountain Pine · near
46,250
Mountain Pine · near
46,250 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #3
Swifton · near
46,250
Swifton · near
46,250 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #4
Cambridge · this city
46,261
Cambridge · this city
46,261 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #5
Brock Hall · highest
190,896
Brock Hall · highest
190,896 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: 13,094.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Cambridge - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Cambridge lands in the 14th percentile for household income and the 9th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
14th
percentile, household income
57th
percentile, home value
84th
percentile, median rent
9th
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, MD
Maryland's Cambridge is a small town, with 13,094 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Cambridge report a median income of $46,261 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 14.8%. Home values in Cambridge run a median of $254,400, and the median resident age is 38.6 years. About 19.1% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 55.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 23 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 53% from five years earlier. Cambridge's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 3733.4 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Maryland carries a cost-of-living premium: the state registers 105.0 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 $1,657 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Maryland run around $255, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in Cambridge report an average commute of 20.0 minutes, with 77.4% driving alone and 6.5% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 60.2 out of 100 (Moderate).
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 within-city variation 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, within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Cambridge?
The NCES join finds 5 public schools within the city match. 19.1% 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.
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.
What does the journey to work look like in Cambridge?
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 77.4%. The reported mean trip to work is 20.0 minutes.
Which cities make useful reference points for Cambridge?
Within Maryland, the closest population matches are Linganore (13,044 residents, $173,763 income); Green Valley (13,187 residents, $174,221 income); California (13,223 residents, $112,717 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Dover, OH (13,094 residents); North Palm Beach, FL (13,089 residents); Carpinteria, CA (13,100 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.
What can 10 Census tracts reveal inside Cambridge?
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.
PlainCities matches 10 Census tracts to this city.
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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Cambridge?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 14.8%, 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. 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.
Household income
$46,261
Home value
$254,400
Value / income
5.5×
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 Cambridge?
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 3733.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 64% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
3188.2
Violent rate
545.2
Total reported rate
3733.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Cambridge growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +362 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +2.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 23 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+2.8%
2025 estimate
13,457
2020 estimate
13,095
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 F
19.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
14.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
105.0 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Household income F
$46,261
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
545 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cambridge profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 32/100 (F) · 19.1%
Poverty rate: 23/100 (F) · 14.8%
Cost of living: 21/100 (F) · 105.0 index
Household income: 15/100 (F) · $46,261
Violent crime: 13/100 (F) · 545 /100k
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 25 peers.Read the chart values
Cambridge, MD (this city): home $254,400, crime 3,733/100k
Dover, OH : home $172,600, crime 782/100k
North Palm Beach, FL : home $456,700, crime 635/100k
Carpinteria, CA : home $965,200, crime 1,560/100k
Soddy-Daisy, TN : home $241,400, crime 761/100k
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 Cambridge compare to other US cities?
Here's how Cambridge stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income14% higher than other cities
Home value57% pricier than other cities
Median rent84% pricier than other cities
Safety9% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Maryland and the picture shifts: Cambridge ranks #54 of 70 Maryland cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Cambridge against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Maryland only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Maryland-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Cambridge near the bottom of Maryland's cities
Among the 479 Maryland 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
#426 of 445
4th percentile in Maryland
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 479
0th percentile in Maryland
Median Home Value
#340 of 450
24th percentile in Maryland
Poverty Rate
#64 of 479
86th percentile in Maryland
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#372 of 479
22nd percentile in Maryland
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 Maryland only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
14th percentile nationally for median household income · 9th 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+)
$254,40043rd percentilemore affordable than 43% 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: 5.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,582 of 15,516
More affordable than 12% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,815 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 5.5×, Cambridge sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,582 of 15,516 and #2,815 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$46,261Cambridge, MD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Cambridge, MD 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, MD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)19.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)14.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)55.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
13,094
Median Income
$46,261
Median Home Value
$254,400
Median Age
38.6
Poverty Rate
14.8%
Labor force participation
55.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
19.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3733.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
545.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3188.2
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
5
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
13,095 residents
2021
13,106 residents
2022
13,095 residents
2023
13,231 residents
2024
13,313 residents
2025
13,457 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
23
housing units authorized
Single-Family
23
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
15
15
0
$2.6M
2020
16
16
0
$2.8M
2021
20
20
0
$3.4M
2022
23
23
0
$4.0M
2023
22
22
0
$3.8M
2024
23
23
0
$4.0M
Permit volume increased 53% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
20.0 minutes
Drive Alone
77.4%
Carpool
12.3%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
2.1%
Work from Home
6.5%
Other
1.7%
Based on 5,667 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Maryland statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $255
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Maryland at $255 (electricity about $120 , water and sewer about $55 ).
These are Maryland 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
Maryland's BEA cost-of-living index is 105.0 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Cambridge is $1,657/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Maryland statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 60.2 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Maryland 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 Maryland 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.