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Place dossier plate
SheetNJ-PLEASANTVILLE-NJ · Pleasantville, NJ 20,604 pop · income 23rd 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 Pleasantville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Pleasantville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Pittsburg · lowest
40,220
Pittsburg · lowest
40,220 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #1
Center Point · near
52,401
Center Point · near
52,401 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #2
Pleasantville · this city
52,403
Pleasantville · this city
52,403 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #3
Potomac · near
52,404
Potomac · near
52,404 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #4
Waterloo · near
52,404
Waterloo · near
52,404 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #5
West Clarksto… · near
52,406
West Clarksto… · near
52,406 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #6
Secaucus · highest
134,746
Secaucus · highest
134,746 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 Pleasantville 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: 20,604.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Pleasantville - the verdict
Nationally, Pleasantville sits in the 23rd percentile for household income and the 35th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
23rd
percentile, household income
36th
percentile, home value
94th
percentile, median rent
35th
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: Pleasantville, NJ
Pleasantville is a small city in New Jersey, home to 20,604 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $52,403 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 21.2%. Typical homes in Pleasantville are valued around $177,700, and the median resident age is 35.0 years. Educational attainment runs 11.6% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 58.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 19 residential building permits were authorized in Pleasantville (Building Boom), up 1800% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1876.9 incidents per 100,000 residents, near the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
New Jersey carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, New Jersey scores 108.8 (Well Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,132 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts New Jersey's average monthly utility costs around $275 (state average). The average commute for Pleasantville workers runs 19.9 minutes, with 67.7% driving alone and 4.9% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 90.8 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Pleasantville'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 reported crime to housing and income to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to schools and households to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Pleasantville, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits.
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
What can the FBI record say about safety in Pleasantville?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1876.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 18% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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.
How far does income reach against housing in Pleasantville?
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 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 21.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Pleasantville?
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.
Within New Jersey, the closest population matches are Morristown (20,256 residents, $115,409 income); Palisades Park (20,192 residents, $101,295 income); Woodbridge (20,086 residents, $99,718 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Pittsburg, KS (20,606 residents); Bethany, OK (20,606 residents); Arlington, WA (20,599 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Pleasantville?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 67.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 19.9 minutes.
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.
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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Pleasantville?
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 6 public schools within the city match. 11.6% 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.
Poverty estimate
21.2%
Bachelor's degree+
11.6%
Matched public schools
6
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Is Pleasantville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +275 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 19 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
2020 estimate
20,578
2025 estimate
20,853
Period change
+1.3%
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.
Household income F
$52,403
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
403 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate F
21.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
11.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living F
108.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Pleasantville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 24/100 (F) · $52,403
Violent crime: 22/100 (F) · 403 /100k
Poverty rate: 11/100 (F) · 21.2%
Bachelor's+ share: 11/100 (F) · 11.6%
Cost of living: 10/100 (F) · 108.8 index
Where Pleasantville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Pleasantville'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 - Pleasantville highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Pleasantville, NJ (this city): home $177,700, crime 1,877/100k
Pittsburg, KS : home $110,800, crime 3,860/100k
Bethany, OK : home $161,500, crime 1,741/100k
Arlington, WA : home $492,600, crime 2,559/100k
Altoona, IA : home $257,300, crime 2,154/100k
Parma Heights, OH : home $165,800, crime 361/100k
Shafter, CA : home $306,800, crime 1,644/100k
Morristown, NJ : home $552,800, crime 1,063/100k
Palisades Park, NJ : home $704,400, crime 713/100k
Elmwood Park, NJ : home $456,000, crime 2,468/100k
Secaucus, NJ : home $557,800, crime 3,788/100k
Lindenwold, NJ : home $168,300, crime 2,515/100k
How does Pleasantville compare to other US cities?
Here's how Pleasantville stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income23% higher than other cities
Home value36% pricier than other cities
Median rent94% pricier than other cities
Safety35% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just New Jersey and the picture shifts: Pleasantville ranks #175 of 238 New Jersey cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Pleasantville against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to New Jersey only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
New Jersey-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Pleasantville near the bottom of New Jersey's cities
Among the 686 New Jersey cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Pleasantville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Pleasantville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#631 of 659
4th percentile in New Jersey
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 686
0th percentile in New Jersey
Median Home Value
#642 of 672
4th percentile in New Jersey
Poverty Rate
#28 of 680
96th percentile in New Jersey
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#657 of 686
4th percentile in New Jersey
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 New Jersey only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
23rd percentile nationally for median household income · 35th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Pleasantville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Pleasantville'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 Pleasantville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$177,700Among the most affordablemore affordable than 64% 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
Pleasantville's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,534 of 15,516
More affordable than 45% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,389 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.4×, Pleasantville sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,534 of 15,516 and #1,389 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
$52,403Pleasantville, NJ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Pleasantville, NJ median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Pleasantville, NJ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)11.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)21.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
20,604
Median Income
$52,403
Median Home Value
$177,700
Median Age
35.0
Poverty Rate
21.2%
Labor force participation
58.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
11.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1876.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
402.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1474.4
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
6
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Pleasantville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
20,578 residents
2021
20,589 residents
2022
20,660 residents
2023
20,718 residents
2024
20,888 residents
2025
20,853 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
19
housing units authorized
Single-Family
19
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.9
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1
1
0
$0.1M
2020
5
5
0
$0.2M
2021
8
8
0
$0.5M
2022
11
11
0
$0.7M
2023
27
27
0
$2.2M
2024
19
19
0
$1.7M
Permit volume increased 1800% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
19.9 minutes
Drive Alone
67.7%
Carpool
15.6%
Public Transit
6.9%
Walk
3.2%
Work from Home
4.9%
Other
1.7%
Based on 9,444 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
New Jersey statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $275
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across New Jersey at $275 (electricity about $120 , water and sewer about $60 ).
These are New Jersey statewide averages, not a meter reading for Pleasantville. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
New Jersey's BEA cost-of-living index is 108.8 (Well Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Pleasantville is $2,132/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to New Jersey statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 90.8 / 100 (Very High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a New Jersey statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Pleasantville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Pleasantville compares to similar-size New Jersey 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.