Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetMN-CROOKSTON-MN · Crookston, MN 7,388 pop · income 26th 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 Crookston
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Crookston on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Bloomfield · lowest
51,212
Bloomfield · lowest
51,212 median HH income
28.8% of the leader · rank #1
Rockford · near
54,000
Rockford · near
54,000 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #2
Wilton · near
54,000
Wilton · near
54,000 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #3
Markle · near
54,000
Markle · near
54,000 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #4
Crookston · this city
54,003
Crookston · this city
54,003 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #5
Gates · near
54,003
Gates · near
54,003 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #6
Pleasantville · highest
177,591
Pleasantville · highest
177,591 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 Crookston 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: 7,388.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Crookston - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Crookston lands in the 26th percentile for household income and the 51st percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
26th
percentile, household income
30th
percentile, home value
36th
percentile, median rent
51st
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: Crookston, MN
7,388 people live in Crookston, Minnesota - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $54,003 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 10.8%. Typical homes in Crookston are valued around $160,700, and the median resident age is 41.5 years. About 32.2% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 62.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 2 residential building permits were authorized in Crookston (Construction Slowdown), down 60% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Crookston reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1332.4 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).
Minnesota tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 98.6 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 $1,125 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Minnesota run around $225, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in Crookston report an average commute of 16.7 minutes, with 76.5% driving alone and 4.9% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 42.4 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Crookston'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 comparison shortlist 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 Crookston, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates.
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. Population change
Is Crookston 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 -107 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 2 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What does the education layer cover for Crookston?
The NCES join finds 4 public schools within the city match. 32.2% 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 Crookston?
Within Minnesota, the closest population matches are Belle Plaine (7,401 residents, $96,831 income); Shorewood (7,679 residents, $172,325 income); St. Joseph (7,024 residents, $75,217 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Wauseon, OH (7,387 residents); Bloomfield, NM (7,391 residents); Pleasantville, NY (7,395 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Crookston?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 10.8%, 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. 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.
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 Crookston?
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 76.5%. The reported mean trip to work is 16.7 minutes.
Public transit
1.7%
Work from home
4.9%
Drive alone
76.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 3,734 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Crookston?
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 1332.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 42% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
916.0
Violent rate
416.4
Total reported rate
1332.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 10.8% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
98.6 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Minnesota average
F
City profile score · Crookston, MN
37/100
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 C+
32.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living D
98.6 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Poverty rate F
10.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$54,003
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
416 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Crookston profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 62/100 (C+) · 32.2%
Cost of living: 46/100 (D) · 98.6 index
Poverty rate: 37/100 (F) · 10.8%
Household income: 26/100 (F) · $54,003
Violent crime: 21/100 (F) · 416 /100k
Where Crookston sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Crookston'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 - Crookston highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Crookston, MN (this city): home $160,700, crime 1,332/100k
Bloomfield, NM : home $167,800, crime 2,169/100k
Villa Hills, KY : home $339,800, crime 893/100k
Belle Plaine, MN : home $280,400, crime 538/100k
St. Joseph, MN : home $240,300, crime 567/100k
Isanti, MN : home $264,600, crime 570/100k
Spring Lake Park, MN : home $281,800, crime 2,098/100k
Kasson, MN : home $264,500, crime 513/100k
How does Crookston compare to other US cities?
Here's how Crookston stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income26% higher than other cities
Home value30% pricier than other cities
Median rent36% pricier than other cities
Safety51% 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 Minnesota alone, Crookston ranks #148 of 229 Minnesota 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 Crookston against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Minnesota only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Minnesota-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Crookston near the bottom of Minnesota's cities
Among the 785 Minnesota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Crookston ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Crookston only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#611 of 775
21st percentile in Minnesota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 785
0th percentile in Minnesota
Median Home Value
#424 of 774
45th percentile in Minnesota
Poverty Rate
#174 of 785
77th percentile in Minnesota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#178 of 784
77th percentile in Minnesota
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 Minnesota only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
26th percentile nationally for median household income · 51st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Crookston's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Crookston'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 Crookston's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$160,700Among the most affordablemore affordable than 70% 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
Crookston's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#6,567 of 15,516
More affordable than 58% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#5,579 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.0×, Crookston sits in the affordable band:
national rank #6,567 of 15,516 and #5,579 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
$54,003Crookston, MN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Crookston, MN median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Crookston, MN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)32.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)10.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
7,388
Median Income
$54,003
Median Home Value
$160,700
Median Age
41.5
Poverty Rate
10.8%
Labor force participation
62.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
32.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1332.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
416.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
916.0
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
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Crookston's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
7,482 residents
2021
7,392 residents
2022
7,388 residents
2023
7,354 residents
2024
7,424 residents
2025
7,375 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
2
housing units authorized
Single-Family
2
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
5
5
0
$1.8M
2020
1
1
0
$0.4M
2021
3
1
2
$0.6M
2022
6
6
0
$1.8M
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
2
2
0
$0.3M
Permit volume decreased 60% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
16.7 minutes
Drive Alone
76.5%
Carpool
10.0%
Public Transit
1.7%
Walk
6.9%
Work from Home
4.9%
Based on 3,734 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Minnesota statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Minnesota at $225 (electricity about $95 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Minnesota statewide averages, not a meter reading for Crookston. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Minnesota's BEA cost-of-living index is 98.6 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Crookston is $1,125/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Minnesota statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 42.4 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Minnesota statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Crookston sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Crookston compares to similar-size Minnesota 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.