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Place dossier plate
SheetMI-DOWAGIAC-MI · Dowagiac, MI 5,677 pop · income 7th 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 Dowagiac
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Dowagiac on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Cloudcroft · lowest
38,428
Cloudcroft · lowest
38,428 median HH income
22.6% of the leader · rank #1
Pablo · near
38,430
Pablo · near
38,430 median HH income
22.6% of the leader · rank #2
Burns · near
38,430
Burns · near
38,430 median HH income
22.6% of the leader · rank #3
Dowagiac · this city
38,433
Dowagiac · this city
38,433 median HH income
22.6% of the leader · rank #4
Plumerville · near
38,438
Plumerville · near
38,438 median HH income
22.6% of the leader · rank #5
Edwards · near
38,438
Edwards · near
38,438 median HH income
22.6% of the leader · rank #6
Highland Lakes · highest
169,833
Highland Lakes · highest
169,833 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 Dowagiac 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: 5,677.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Dowagiac - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Dowagiac places in the 7th percentile for household income and the 7th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
7th
percentile, household income
13th
percentile, home value
32nd
percentile, median rent
7th
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: Dowagiac, MI
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 5,677 residents in Dowagiac, a small town within Michigan. Dowagiac households earn a median of $38,433 annually, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 28.7%. Dowagiac's housing stock carries a median value of $110,300, and the median resident age is 37.3 years. About 12.1% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 55.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 4 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 300% from five years earlier. Dowagiac's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 4116.6 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 48.1°F with 41.7 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in Michigan run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Michigan at 96.2 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Below Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,113 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Michigan run around $238, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Natural-hazard exposure scores 49.6 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Dowagiac'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 work and mobility to population change to schools and households to comparison shortlist to housing and income to climate and hazard context to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Dowagiac, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, matched public-school count.
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.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Dowagiac?
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 74.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Is Dowagiac growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -72 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 4 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The NCES join finds 7 public schools within the city match. 12.1% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Dowagiac?
Within Michigan, the closest population matches are Zeeland (5,691 residents, $49,367 income); Houghton Lake (5,761 residents, $50,861 income); Dundee (5,584 residents, $71,058 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Black Diamond, WA (5,678 residents); West Clarkston-Highland, WA (5,678 residents); Fruitridge Pocket, CA (5,675 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.
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 Dowagiac?
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 28.7%, 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.
Household income
$38,433
Home value
$110,300
Value / income
2.9×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 48.1°F, with 41.7 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Michigan is 49.6 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
48.1°F
Annual precipitation
41.7 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
49.6
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Dowagiac?
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 4116.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 81% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
3427.6
Violent rate
689.0
Total reported rate
4116.6
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 28.7% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
96.2 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Michigan average
F
City profile score · Dowagiac, MI
16/100
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.
Cost of living C
96.2 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share F
12.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
689 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$38,433
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
28.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Dowagiac profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 57/100 (C) · 96.2 index
Bachelor's+ share: 12/100 (F) · 12.1%
Violent crime: 6/100 (F) · 689 /100k
Household income: 5/100 (F) · $38,433
Poverty rate: 1/100 (F) · 28.7%
Where Dowagiac sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Dowagiac'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 - Dowagiac highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Dowagiac, MI (this city): home $110,300, crime 4,117/100k
Black Diamond, WA : home $776,400, crime 423/100k
Kermit, TX : home $119,300, crime 631/100k
Zeeland, MI : home $248,100, crime 641/100k
St. Clair, MI : home $241,700, crime 515/100k
Grosse Pointe, MI : home $391,800, crime 2,081/100k
Richmond, MI : home $228,000, crime 687/100k
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 Dowagiac compare to other US cities?
Dowagiac measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income7% higher than other cities
Home value13% pricier than other cities
Median rent32% pricier than other cities
Safety7% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Michigan, Dowagiac ranks #240 of 254 Michigan cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Dowagiac against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Michigan only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Michigan-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Dowagiac near the bottom of Michigan's cities
Among the 727 Michigan cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Dowagiac ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Dowagiac only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#678 of 718
6th percentile in Michigan
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 727
0th percentile in Michigan
Median Home Value
#525 of 721
27th percentile in Michigan
Poverty Rate
#28 of 727
96th percentile in Michigan
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#548 of 727
24th percentile in Michigan
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 Michigan only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
7th percentile nationally for median household income · 7th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Dowagiac's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Dowagiac'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 Dowagiac's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$110,300Among the most affordablemore affordable than 87% 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
Dowagiac's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,956 of 15,516
More affordable than 62% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#5,129 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.9×, Dowagiac sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,956 of 15,516 and #5,129 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
$38,433Dowagiac, MI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Dowagiac, MI median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Dowagiac, MI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)12.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)28.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)55.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
5,677
Median Income
$38,433
Median Home Value
$110,300
Median Age
37.3
Poverty Rate
28.7%
Labor force participation
55.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
12.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
4116.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
689.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3427.6
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
48.1°F
Annual Precipitation
41.7"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
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
Dowagiac's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
5,797 residents
2021
5,737 residents
2022
5,690 residents
2023
5,754 residents
2024
5,745 residents
2025
5,725 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
4
housing units authorized
Single-Family
4
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1
1
0
$0.2M
2020
1
1
0
$0.2M
2021
1
1
0
$0.2M
2022
2
2
0
$0.7M
2023
2
2
0
$0.4M
2024
4
4
0
$0.9M
Permit volume increased 300% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
74.5%
Carpool
12.4%
Public Transit
1.5%
Walk
4.7%
Work from Home
3.5%
Other
3.4%
Based on 2,504 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Michigan statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $238
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Michigan at $238 (electricity about $105 , water and sewer about $48 ).
These are Michigan statewide averages, not a meter reading for Dowagiac. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Michigan's BEA cost-of-living index is 96.2 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Dowagiac is $1,113/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Michigan statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.6 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Michigan statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Dowagiac sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Dowagiac compares to similar-size Michigan 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.