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Place dossier plate
SheetME-ORONO-ME · Orono, ME 10,699 pop · income 30th pct · 18 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 Orono
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Orono on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Old · lowest
49,329
Old · lowest
49,329 median HH income
32.8% of the leader · rank #1
Sturgeon Bay · near
56,882
Sturgeon Bay · near
56,882 median HH income
37.8% of the leader · rank #2
Waite Park · near
56,884
Waite Park · near
56,884 median HH income
37.8% of the leader · rank #3
Bellair-Meado… · near
56,887
Bellair-Meado… · near
56,887 median HH income
37.8% of the leader · rank #4
Orono · this city
56,890
Orono · this city
56,890 median HH income
37.8% of the leader · rank #5
New Bern · near
56,893
New Bern · near
56,893 median HH income
37.8% of the leader · rank #6
Felida · highest
150,430
Felida · highest
150,430 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 Orono 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: 10,699.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Orono - the verdict
Orono ranks in the 30th percentile for household income and the 97th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
30th
percentile, household income
48th
percentile, home value
69th
percentile, median rent
97th
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: Orono, ME
Maine's Orono is a small town, with 10,699 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $56,890 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.5%. Orono's housing stock carries a median value of $219,200, and the median resident age is 21.7 years. 68.0% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 52.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Orono reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 150.3 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 Orono's yearly average temperature at 45.1°F.
Maine tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 97.1 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,448 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $273 across Maine, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Orono report an average commute of 15.3 minutes, with 59.3% driving alone and 9.8% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 56.7 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Orono'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 housing and income to comparison shortlist to reported crime to work and mobility to within-city variation to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Orono, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
No matched row is reported here for annual population history, local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Orono?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 68.0% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Orono?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.5%, 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 Orono?
Within Maine, the closest population matches are Brewer (9,654 residents, $51,490 income); Old Orchard Beach (9,150 residents, $65,842 income); Bath (8,801 residents, $65,565 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Fuller Heights, FL (10,697 residents); Kearney, MO (10,696 residents); Felida, WA (10,695 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.
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 18 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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Orono?
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 150.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 93% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
102.8
Violent rate
47.5
Total reported rate
150.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 59.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 15.3 minutes.
Public transit
0.4%
Work from home
9.8%
Drive alone
59.3%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 5,132 workers age 16+.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 45.1°F. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Maine is 56.7 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.
Mean temperature
45.1°F
FEMA risk index (state avg)
56.7
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Below median income · poverty 6.5% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Maine average
C+
City profile score · Orono, ME
61/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share A+
68.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime A-
48 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate C
6.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living C-
97.1 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
$56,890
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Orono profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 96/100 (A+) · 68.0%
Violent crime: 84/100 (A-) · 48 /100k
Poverty rate: 56/100 (C) · 6.5%
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Household income: 30/100 (F) · $56,890
Where Orono sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Orono'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 - Orono highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Orono, ME (this city): home $219,200, crime 150/100k
Kearney, MO : home $275,200, crime 825/100k
Lexington, NE : home $155,200, crime 1,482/100k
Tarboro, NC : home $155,500, crime 3,361/100k
Brewer, ME : home $218,100, crime 1,836/100k
Old Orchard Beach, ME : home $317,800, crime 1,147/100k
Bath, ME : home $285,400, crime 789/100k
Presque Isle, ME : home $142,400, crime 2,395/100k
Ellsworth, ME : home $214,500, crime 2,553/100k
How does Orono compare to other US cities?
Where Orono sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income30% higher than other cities
Home value48% pricier than other cities
Median rent69% pricier than other cities
Safety97% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Maine and the picture shifts: Orono ranks #3 of 73 Maine cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Orono against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Maine only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Maine-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Orono near the bottom of Maine's cities
Among the 154 Maine cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Orono ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Orono only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#76 of 145
48th percentile in Maine
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 154
0th percentile in Maine
Median Home Value
#70 of 151
54th percentile in Maine
Poverty Rate
#85 of 154
44th percentile in Maine
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#3 of 154
98th percentile in Maine
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 Maine only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
30th percentile nationally for median household income · 97th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Orono's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Orono'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 Orono's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$219,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 52% 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
Orono's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,231 of 15,516
More affordable than 34% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,837 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.9×, Orono sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,231 of 15,516 and #1,837 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
$56,890Orono, ME median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Orono, ME median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Orono, ME.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)68.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)52.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
10,699
Median Income
$56,890
Median Home Value
$219,200
Median Age
21.7
Poverty Rate
6.5%
Labor force participation
52.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
68.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
150.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
47.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
102.8
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
45.1°F
Annual Precipitation
N/A
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
15.3 minutes
Drive Alone
59.3%
Carpool
8.8%
Public Transit
0.4%
Walk
19.3%
Work from Home
9.8%
Other
2.4%
Based on 5,132 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Maine statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $273
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Maine at $273 (electricity about $130 , water and sewer about $48 ).
These are Maine statewide averages, not a meter reading for Orono. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Maine's BEA cost-of-living index is 97.1 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Orono is $1,448/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Maine statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 56.7 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Maine statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Orono sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Orono compares to similar-size Maine 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.