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Place dossier plate
SheetMO-BALLWIN-MO · Ballwin, MO 30,835 pop · income 88th 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 Ballwin
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Ballwin on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Sanford · lowest
54,294
Sanford · lowest
54,294 median HH income
25.5% of the leader · rank #1
Crozet · near
121,153
Crozet · near
121,153 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #2
Sunnyside-Tah… · near
121,154
Sunnyside-Tah… · near
121,154 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #3
Beech Mountai… · near
121,154
Beech Mountai… · near
121,154 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #4
Ballwin · this city
121,170
Ballwin · this city
121,170 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #5
Exton · near
121,189
Exton · near
121,189 median HH income
57.0% of the leader · rank #6
Westfield · highest
212,700
Westfield · highest
212,700 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 Ballwin 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: 30,835.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Ballwin - the verdict
Ballwin ranks in the 88th percentile for household income and the 83rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
88th
percentile, household income
72nd
percentile, home value
7th
percentile, median rent
83rd
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: Ballwin, MO
30,835 people live in Ballwin, Missouri - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Ballwin households earn a median of $121,170 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 3.1%. Home values in Ballwin run a median of $353,400, and the median resident age is 42.3 years. Educational attainment runs 65.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 65.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 1 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 97% from five years earlier. Ballwin reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 540.3 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).
Living costs in Missouri run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Missouri at 90.8 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $972 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Missouri run around $219, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 50.6 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Ballwin'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 comparison shortlist to schools and households to housing and income to reported crime to work and mobility to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Ballwin, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, annual population history.
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.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Ballwin?
Within Missouri, the closest population matches are Liberty (30,446 residents, $95,425 income); Raytown (29,593 residents, $67,227 income); Kirkwood (29,302 residents, $117,439 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Sanford, NC (30,833 residents); North Attleborough, MA (30,842 residents); La Verne, CA (30,804 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.
The NCES join finds 12 public schools within the city match. 65.1% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Ballwin?
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 3.1%, 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 can the FBI record say about safety in Ballwin?
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 540.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 76% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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 Ballwin?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.7%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.2%
Work from home
19.2%
Drive alone
75.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 15,745 workers age 16+.
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 -761 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1 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
-2.4%
2025 estimate
30,901
2020 estimate
31,662
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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+
65.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A
$121,170
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Cost of living A-
90.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime A-
56 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate B+
3.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Ballwin profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 95/100 (A+) · 65.1%
Household income: 86/100 (A) · $121,170
Cost of living: 83/100 (A-) · 90.8 index
Violent crime: 82/100 (A-) · 56 /100k
Poverty rate: 78/100 (B+) · 3.1%
Where Ballwin sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Ballwin'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 - Ballwin highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Ballwin, MO (this city): home $353,400, crime 540/100k
La Verne, CA : home $793,900, crime 2,586/100k
North Chicago, IL : home $147,800, crime 742/100k
Westfield, NJ : home $930,500, crime 572/100k
Liberty, MO : home $267,900, crime 1,775/100k
Raytown, MO : home $162,000, crime 4,602/100k
Kirkwood, MO : home $421,500, crime 1,609/100k
Maryland Heights, MO : home $215,300, crime 1,499/100k
Gladstone, MO : home $217,900, crime 2,073/100k
How does Ballwin compare to other US cities?
Where Ballwin sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income88% higher than other cities
Home value72% pricier than other cities
Median rent7% pricier than other cities
Safety83% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Missouri and the picture shifts: Ballwin ranks #24 of 234 Missouri cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Ballwin against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Missouri only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Missouri-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Ballwin near the bottom of Missouri's cities
Among the 875 Missouri cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Ballwin ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Ballwin only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#36 of 842
96th percentile in Missouri
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 875
0th percentile in Missouri
Median Home Value
#44 of 833
95th percentile in Missouri
Poverty Rate
#692 of 875
20th percentile in Missouri
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#25 of 875
97th percentile in Missouri
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 Missouri only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
88th percentile nationally for median household income · 83rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Ballwin's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Ballwin'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 Ballwin's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$353,40028th percentilemore affordable than 28% 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
Ballwin's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#6,237 of 15,516
More affordable than 60% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#793 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.9×, Ballwin sits in the affordable band:
national rank #6,237 of 15,516 and #793 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$121,170Ballwin, MO median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Ballwin, MO median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Ballwin, MO.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)65.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
30,835
Median Income
$121,170
Median Home Value
$353,400
Median Age
42.3
Poverty Rate
3.1%
Labor force participation
65.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
65.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
540.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
56.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
483.9
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
12
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Ballwin's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
31,662 residents
2021
31,452 residents
2022
31,166 residents
2023
31,005 residents
2024
30,992 residents
2025
30,901 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
1
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
34
34
0
$12.9M
2020
7
7
0
$2.5M
2021
6
6
0
$2.7M
2022
5
5
0
$2.1M
2023
3
3
0
$1.4M
2024
1
1
0
$0.5M
Permit volume decreased 97% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
75.7%
Carpool
4.2%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
0.2%
Work from Home
19.2%
Based on 15,745 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Missouri statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $219
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Missouri at $219 (electricity about $105 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Missouri statewide averages, not a meter reading for Ballwin. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Missouri's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.8 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Ballwin is $972/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Missouri statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 50.6 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Missouri statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Ballwin sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Ballwin compares to similar-size Missouri 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.