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Place dossier plate
SheetNC-CRESWELL-NC · Creswell, NC 205 pop · income 4th 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 Creswell
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Creswell on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Vandemere · lowest
31,250
Vandemere · lowest
31,250 median HH income
18.7% of the leader · rank #1
Brunswick · near
34,021
Brunswick · near
34,021 median HH income
20.4% of the leader · rank #2
Creswell · this city
34,028
Creswell · this city
34,028 median HH income
20.4% of the leader · rank #3
Estherwood · near
34,028
Estherwood · near
34,028 median HH income
20.4% of the leader · rank #4
Plantersville · near
34,034
Plantersville · near
34,034 median HH income
20.4% of the leader · rank #5
Tonalea · near
34,044
Tonalea · near
34,044 median HH income
20.4% of the leader · rank #6
Mountain Mead… · highest
166,761
Mountain Mead… · highest
166,761 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
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Creswell on ACS population and median household income
. 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: 205.
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Creswell places in the 4th percentile for household income. Source: Census ACS.
4th
percentile, household income
17th
percentile, home value
48th
percentile, median rent
📝 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: Creswell, NC
Creswell is a small town in North Carolina, home to 205 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Creswell brings in $34,028 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 29.1%. Creswell's housing stock carries a median value of $119,600, and the median resident age is 40.3 years. 11.4% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 44.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The city is served by 3 public schools according to NCES Common Core of Data.
Living costs in North Carolina run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, North Carolina scores 94.3 (Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,161 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in North Carolina run around $215, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 66.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Creswell'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 population change to work and mobility to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Creswell, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, annual population history.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Creswell?
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.
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 11.4% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Creswell?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 29.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Is Creswell growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -8 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -3.8% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Creswell?
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.
Within North Carolina, the closest population matches are Mesic (206 residents); Vandemere (204 residents, $31,250 income); Eureka (203 residents, $57,917 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Deering, AK (205 residents); Golovin, AK (205 residents); Clay Springs, AZ (205 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.
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 Creswell?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 85.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
Drive alone
85.5%
Work from home
0.0%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 69 workers age 16+.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 29.1% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
94.3 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, North Carolina average
F
City profile score · Creswell, NC
19/100
4 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 B-
94.3 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
11.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
29.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$34,028
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Creswell profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 67/100 (B-) · 94.3 index
Bachelor's+ share: 10/100 (F) · 11.4%
Poverty rate: 1/100 (F) · 29.1%
Household income: 0/100 (F) · $34,028
How does Creswell compare to other US cities?
Creswell measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income4% higher than other cities
Home value17% pricier than other cities
Median rent48% pricier than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Creswell against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to North Carolina only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
North Carolina-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Creswell near the bottom of North Carolina's cities
Among the 746 North Carolina cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Creswell ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Creswell only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#647 of 700
8th percentile in North Carolina
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 746
0th percentile in North Carolina
Median Home Value
#571 of 708
19th percentile in North Carolina
Poverty Rate
#65 of 746
91st percentile in North Carolina
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#616 of 746
17th percentile in North Carolina
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 North Carolina only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
4th percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Creswell's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$119,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 83% 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
Creswell's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,021 of 15,516
More affordable than 42% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#7,274 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.5×, Creswell sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,021 of 15,516 and #7,274 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$34,028Creswell, NC median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Creswell, NC median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Creswell, NC.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)11.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)29.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)44.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
205
Median Income
$34,028
Median Home Value
$119,600
Median Age
40.3
Poverty Rate
29.1%
Labor force participation
44.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
11.4%
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Creswell's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
208 residents
2021
206 residents
2022
204 residents
2023
202 residents
2024
201 residents
2025
200 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
85.5%
Carpool
14.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
0.0%
Based on 69 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
North Carolina statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $215
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across North Carolina at $215 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are North Carolina statewide averages, not a meter reading for Creswell. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
North Carolina's BEA cost-of-living index is 94.3 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Creswell is $1,161/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to North Carolina statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 66.7 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a North Carolina statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Creswell sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Creswell compares to similar-size North Carolina 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, 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.