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Place dossier plate
SheetMD-CAPITOL-HEIGHTS-MD · Capitol Heights, MD 4,014 pop · income 72nd 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 Capitol Heights
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Capitol Heights on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Warminster He… · lowest
47,283
Warminster He… · lowest
47,283 median HH income
33.0% of the leader · rank #1
Cazenovia · near
91,923
Cazenovia · near
91,923 median HH income
64.3% of the leader · rank #2
Stow · near
91,933
Stow · near
91,933 median HH income
64.3% of the leader · rank #3
Capitol Heigh… · this city
91,938
Capitol Heigh… · this city
91,938 median HH income
64.3% of the leader · rank #4
Orderville · near
91,944
Orderville · near
91,944 median HH income
64.3% of the leader · rank #5
Vadnais Heigh… · near
91,946
Vadnais Heigh… · near
91,946 median HH income
64.3% of the leader · rank #6
Pleasant Hills · highest
143,068
Pleasant Hills · highest
143,068 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 Capitol Heights 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: 4,014.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Capitol Heights - the verdict
Nationally, Capitol Heights sits in the 72nd percentile for household income and the 46th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
72nd
percentile, household income
64th
percentile, home value
84th
percentile, median rent
46th
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: Capitol Heights, MD
4,014 people live in Capitol Heights, Maryland - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $91,938 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 1.9%. Capitol Heights's housing stock carries a median value of $294,700, and the median resident age is 33.9 years. About 19.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 65.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Capitol Heights reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1502.8 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
Maryland carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Maryland scores 105.0 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. 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. 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 Capitol Heights'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 comparison shortlist to population change to housing and income 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 Capitol Heights, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits; 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 Capitol Heights?
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 7 public schools within the city match. 19.7% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Capitol Heights?
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 Maryland, the closest population matches are Marlboro Meadows (4,003 residents, $107,585 income); Friendship Heights (3,991 residents, $110,199 income); Indian Head (3,982 residents, $84,898 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Stanley, NC (4,014 residents); Millstadt, IL (4,013 residents); Warminster Heights, PA (4,013 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.
Is Capitol Heights growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +10 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.2% 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.
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.
How far does income reach against housing in Capitol Heights?
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 3.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 1.9%, 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Capitol Heights?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 63.4%. 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
63.4%
Work from home
7.9%
Public transit
9.4%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,903 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Capitol Heights?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1502.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 34% 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
1502.8
Violent rate
458.5
Property rate
1044.3
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.
Poverty rate A
1.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income B
$91,938
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
19.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
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.
Violent crime F
459 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Capitol Heights profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 86/100 (A) · 1.9%
Household income: 71/100 (B) · $91,938
Bachelor's+ share: 33/100 (F) · 19.7%
Cost of living: 21/100 (F) · 105.0 index
Violent crime: 19/100 (F) · 459 /100k
Where Capitol Heights sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Capitol Heights'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 - Capitol Heights highlighted among 23 peers.Read the chart values
Capitol Heights, MD (this city): home $294,700, crime 1,503/100k
Millstadt, IL : home $205,400, crime 179/100k
Camden, DE : home $268,800, crime 4,514/100k
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 Capitol Heights compare to other US cities?
Capitol Heights measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income72% higher than other cities
Home value64% pricier than other cities
Median rent84% pricier than other cities
Safety46% 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 Maryland alone, Capitol Heights ranks #27 of 70 Maryland 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 Capitol Heights 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 Capitol Heights near the bottom of Maryland's cities
Among the 479 Maryland cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Capitol Heights ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Capitol Heights only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#259 of 445
42nd percentile in Maryland
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 479
0th percentile in Maryland
Median Home Value
#305 of 450
32nd percentile in Maryland
Poverty Rate
#317 of 479
33rd percentile in Maryland
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#366 of 479
23rd 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
72nd percentile nationally for median household income · 46th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Capitol Heights's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Capitol Heights'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 Capitol Heights's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$294,70036th 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
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,725 of 15,516
More affordable than 50% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#6,379 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.2×, Capitol Heights sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,725 of 15,516 and #6,379 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
$91,938Capitol Heights, MD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Capitol Heights, 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 Capitol Heights, MD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)19.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)1.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,014
Median Income
$91,938
Median Home Value
$294,700
Median Age
33.9
Poverty Rate
1.9%
Labor force participation
65.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
19.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1502.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
458.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1044.3
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
7
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Capitol Heights's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
4,034 residents
2021
3,997 residents
2022
3,975 residents
2023
3,984 residents
2024
4,024 residents
2025
4,044 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
63.4%
Carpool
14.7%
Public Transit
9.4%
Walk
1.6%
Work from Home
7.9%
Other
3.0%
Based on 1,903 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 Capitol Heights. 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 Capitol Heights 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 Capitol Heights sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Capitol Heights 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.