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Place dossier plate
SheetMD-SYKESVILLE-MD · Sykesville, MD 4,346 pop · income 91st 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 Sykesville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Sykesville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
North Wilkesb… · lowest
39,288
North Wilkesb… · lowest
39,288 median HH income
23.4% of the leader · rank #1
Kohler · near
135,688
Kohler · near
135,688 median HH income
80.9% of the leader · rank #2
Sykesville · this city
135,692
Sykesville · this city
135,692 median HH income
80.9% of the leader · rank #3
Hamilton Squa… · near
135,694
Hamilton Squa… · near
135,694 median HH income
80.9% of the leader · rank #4
Manorville · near
135,695
Manorville · near
135,695 median HH income
80.9% of the leader · rank #5
Pike Creek · near
135,703
Pike Creek · near
135,703 median HH income
80.9% of the leader · rank #6
Wanamassa · highest
167,712
Wanamassa · highest
167,712 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 Sykesville 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: 4,346.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Sykesville - the verdict
Sykesville ranks in the 91st percentile for household income and the 81st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
91st
percentile, household income
77th
percentile, home value
84th
percentile, median rent
81st
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: Sykesville, MD
Sykesville is a small town in Maryland, home to 4,346 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Sykesville report a median income of $135,692 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.1%. Home values in Sykesville run a median of $398,600, and the median resident age is 34.9 years. Educational attainment runs 51.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 73.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Sykesville reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 607.6 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: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Maryland at 105.0 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,657 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Maryland's average monthly utility costs around $255 (state average). Natural-hazard exposure scores 60.2 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Sykesville'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 population change to schools and households to housing and income to comparison shortlist to reported crime to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Sykesville, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, annual population history.
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.
Question 1
Is Sykesville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +276 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +6.4% 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.
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.
What does the education layer cover for Sykesville?
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 11 public schools within the city match. 51.1% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Sykesville?
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 2.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Sykesville?
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 Pocomoke City (4,360 residents, $52,163 income); La Vale (4,388 residents, $77,634 income); National Harbor (4,418 residents, $133,616 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Wanamassa, NJ (4,344 residents); North Wilkesboro, NC (4,348 residents); McMurray, PA (4,348 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.
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 Sykesville?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 607.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 73% 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
607.6
Violent rate
67.5
Property rate
540.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Sykesville?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 85.3%. 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. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
Drive alone
85.3%
Work from home
7.9%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 2,344 workers age 16+.
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 A+
$135,692
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate A
2.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share A
51.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime B+
68 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger 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.
Sykesville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 92/100 (A+) · $135,692
Poverty rate: 85/100 (A) · 2.1%
Bachelor's+ share: 85/100 (A) · 51.1%
Violent crime: 79/100 (B+) · 68 /100k
Cost of living: 21/100 (F) · 105.0 index
Where Sykesville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Sykesville'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 - Sykesville highlighted among 26 peers.Read the chart values
Sykesville, MD (this city): home $398,600, crime 608/100k
North Wilkesboro, NC : home $231,400, crime 2,313/100k
Belleair, FL : home $642,600, crime 679/100k
Isle of Palms, SC : home $1,192,200, crime 1,462/100k
Pocomoke City, MD : home $188,700, crime 3,406/100k
Perryville, MD : home $267,700, crime 2,573/100k
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 Sykesville compare to other US cities?
Here's how Sykesville stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income91% higher than other cities
Home value77% pricier than other cities
Median rent84% pricier than other cities
Safety81% 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, Sykesville ranks #10 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 Sykesville 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 Sykesville near the bottom of Maryland's cities
Among the 479 Maryland cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Sykesville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Sykesville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#112 of 445
75th percentile in Maryland
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 479
0th percentile in Maryland
Median Home Value
#191 of 450
58th percentile in Maryland
Poverty Rate
#309 of 479
35th percentile in Maryland
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#108 of 479
77th 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
91st percentile nationally for median household income · 81st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Sykesville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Sykesville'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 Sykesville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$398,60023rd percentilemore affordable than 23% 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
Sykesville's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#6,348 of 15,516
More affordable than 59% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#5,413 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.9×, Sykesville sits in the affordable band:
national rank #6,348 of 15,516 and #5,413 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
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
$135,692Sykesville, MD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Sykesville, 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 Sykesville, MD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)51.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)73.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,346
Median Income
$135,692
Median Home Value
$398,600
Median Age
34.9
Poverty Rate
2.1%
Labor force participation
73.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
51.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
607.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
67.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
540.1
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
11
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Sykesville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
4,326 residents
2021
4,382 residents
2022
4,532 residents
2023
4,618 residents
2024
4,612 residents
2025
4,602 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
85.3%
Carpool
5.9%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
7.9%
Other
0.9%
Based on 2,344 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 Sykesville. 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 Sykesville 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 Sykesville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Sykesville 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.