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-DETROIT-LAKES-MN · Detroit Lakes, MN 10,002 pop · income 38th pct · 10 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 Detroit Lakes
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Detroit Lakes on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Struthers · lowest
51,894
Struthers · lowest
51,894 median HH income
40.3% of the leader · rank #1
Edgemont Park · near
62,120
Edgemont Park · near
62,120 median HH income
48.3% of the leader · rank #2
Detroit Lakes · this city
62,123
Detroit Lakes · this city
62,123 median HH income
48.3% of the leader · rank #3
Taft Heights · near
62,125
Taft Heights · near
62,125 median HH income
48.3% of the leader · rank #4
East Brooklyn · near
62,125
East Brooklyn · near
62,125 median HH income
48.3% of the leader · rank #5
Roaring Spring · near
62,129
Roaring Spring · near
62,129 median HH income
48.3% of the leader · rank #6
Arden Hills · highest
128,668
Arden Hills · highest
128,668 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 Detroit Lakes 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: 10,002.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Detroit Lakes - the verdict
Detroit Lakes ranks in the 38th percentile for household income and the 39th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
38th
percentile, household income
55th
percentile, home value
36th
percentile, median rent
39th
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: Detroit Lakes, MN
Minnesota's Detroit Lakes is a small town, with 10,002 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Detroit Lakes households earn a median of $62,123 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 3.2%. Typical homes in Detroit Lakes are valued around $246,200, and the median resident age is 41.5 years. Educational attainment runs 32.4% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 57.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 31 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 33% from five years earlier. Detroit Lakes reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1715.3 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 40.1°F with 29.4 inches of precipitation per year and 47.6 inches of snowfall.
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. Monthly utility costs average around $225 across Minnesota, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 13.3 minutes, with 75.5% driving alone and 5.5% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. 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 Detroit Lakes'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 housing and income to work and mobility to population change to reported crime to climate and hazard context to schools and households to comparison shortlist to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Detroit Lakes, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, annual population history, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Detroit Lakes?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 4.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.2%, 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Detroit Lakes?
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 75.5%. The reported mean trip to work is 13.3 minutes.
Which cities make useful reference points for Detroit Lakes?
Within Minnesota, the closest population matches are Cambridge (9,992 residents, $67,632 income); Hermantown (10,192 residents, $92,026 income); Arden Hills (9,737 residents, $128,668 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Rio Vista, CA (10,002 residents); Harrisonville, MO (10,002 residents); Fairmount, NY (9,998 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.
What can 10 Census tracts reveal inside Detroit Lakes?
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 10 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.
Population change
Is Detroit Lakes growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -1 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 31 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
-0.0%
2025 estimate
10,019
2020 estimate
10,020
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Detroit Lakes?
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 1715.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 25% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1544.8
Violent rate
170.5
Total reported rate
1715.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What physical conditions frame life in Detroit Lakes?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 40.1°F, with 29.4 inches of precipitation and 47.6 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Minnesota is 42.4 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
40.1°F
Annual precipitation
29.4 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
42.4
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What does the education layer cover for Detroit Lakes?
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 32.4% 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.
Matched public schools
8
Bachelor's degree+
32.4%
Poverty estimate
3.2%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Minnesota average
C-
City profile score · Detroit Lakes, MN
54/100
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.
Poverty rate B+
3.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share C+
32.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime C-
171 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
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.
Household income F
$62,123
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Detroit Lakes profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 77/100 (B+) · 3.2%
Bachelor's+ share: 62/100 (C+) · 32.4%
Violent crime: 53/100 (C-) · 171 /100k
Cost of living: 46/100 (D) · 98.6 index
Household income: 38/100 (F) · $62,123
Where Detroit Lakes sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Detroit Lakes'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 - Detroit Lakes highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Detroit Lakes, MN (this city): home $246,200, crime 1,715/100k
Rio Vista, CA : home $480,300, crime 628/100k
Harrisonville, MO : home $190,300, crime 2,315/100k
Struthers, OH : home $92,800, crime 1,357/100k
Woodbury, NJ : home $207,900, crime 1,997/100k
Cambridge, MN : home $234,800, crime 1,759/100k
Hermantown, MN : home $374,000, crime 2,638/100k
Fairmont, MN : home $168,800, crime 1,691/100k
How does Detroit Lakes compare to other US cities?
Where Detroit Lakes sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income38% higher than other cities
Home value55% pricier than other cities
Median rent36% pricier than other cities
Safety39% 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, Detroit Lakes ranks #174 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 Detroit Lakes 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 Detroit Lakes near the bottom of Minnesota's cities
Among the 785 Minnesota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Detroit Lakes ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Detroit Lakes only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#488 of 775
37th percentile in Minnesota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 785
0th percentile in Minnesota
Median Home Value
#225 of 774
71st percentile in Minnesota
Poverty Rate
#523 of 785
33rd percentile in Minnesota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#175 of 784
78th 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
38th percentile nationally for median household income · 39th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Detroit Lakes's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Detroit Lakes'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 Detroit Lakes's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$246,20045th percentilemore affordable than 45% 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
Detroit Lakes's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,602 of 15,516
More affordable than 32% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,951 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 4.0×, Detroit Lakes sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,602 of 15,516 and #1,951 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
$62,123Detroit Lakes, MN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Detroit Lakes, 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 Detroit Lakes, MN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)32.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
10,002
Median Income
$62,123
Median Home Value
$246,200
Median Age
41.5
Poverty Rate
3.2%
Labor force participation
57.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
32.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1715.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
170.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1544.8
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
40.1°F
Annual Precipitation
29.4"
Annual Snowfall
47.6"
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Detroit Lakes's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
10,020 residents
2021
10,016 residents
2022
10,018 residents
2023
9,995 residents
2024
10,009 residents
2025
10,019 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
31
housing units authorized
Single-Family
31
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
46
0
46
$3.8M
2020
31
21
10
$9.7M
2021
49
33
16
$9.6M
2022
37
30
7
$8.6M
2023
32
30
2
$8.0M
2024
31
31
0
$7.9M
Permit volume decreased 33% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
13.3 minutes
Drive Alone
75.5%
Carpool
8.9%
Public Transit
1.7%
Walk
6.7%
Work from Home
5.5%
Other
1.7%
Based on 4,533 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 Detroit Lakes. 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 Detroit Lakes 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 Detroit Lakes sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Detroit Lakes 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, 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.