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Place dossier plate
SheetNY-ITHACA-NY · Ithaca, NY 31,792 pop · income 17th pct · 26 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 Ithaca
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Ithaca on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Chandler · lowest
48,607
Chandler · lowest
48,607 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #1
Prospect Park · near
48,615
Prospect Park · near
48,615 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #2
Ithaca · this city
48,617
Ithaca · this city
48,617 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #3
London · near
48,618
London · near
48,618 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #4
Fort Payne · near
48,623
Fort Payne · near
48,623 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #5
Pawhuska · near
48,625
Pawhuska · near
48,625 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #6
Oceanside · highest
145,282
Oceanside · highest
145,282 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 Ithaca 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: 31,792.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Ithaca - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Ithaca lands in the 17th percentile for household income and the 12th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
17th
percentile, household income
69th
percentile, home value
78th
percentile, median rent
12th
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: Ithaca, NY
New York's Ithaca is a small city, with 31,792 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $48,617 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 9.1%. Typical homes in Ithaca are valued around $330,100, and the median resident age is 23.6 years. Educational attainment runs 70.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 50.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 117 residential building permits were authorized in Ithaca (Construction Slowdown), down 72% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Ithaca's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 3412.0 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, above the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Ithaca's yearly average temperature at 45.2°F with 41.7 inches of precipitation per year.
New York carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, New York scores 107.9 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,579 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $285 across New York, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 69.4 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Ithaca'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 climate and hazard context to work and mobility to schools and households to housing and income to comparison shortlist to reported crime to within-city variation to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Ithaca, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What physical conditions frame life in Ithaca?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 45.2°F, with 41.7 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for New York is 69.4 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Ithaca?
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 28.9%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Which cities make useful reference points for Ithaca?
Within New York, the closest population matches are Rome (31,795 residents, $58,857 income); Poughkeepsie (31,778 residents, $60,050 income); Oceanside (31,907 residents, $145,282 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Seguin, TX (31,789 residents); Sun City Center, FL (31,801 residents); Pekin, IL (31,812 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.
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 26 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Ithaca?
The NCES join finds 13 public schools within the city match. 70.2% 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.
Matched public schools
13
Bachelor's degree+
70.2%
Poverty estimate
9.1%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Ithaca?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 6.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.1%, 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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
Household income
$48,617
Home value
$330,100
Value / income
6.8×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Ithaca?
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 3412.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 50% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
3215.8
Violent rate
196.2
Total reported rate
3412.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,530 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +4.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 117 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
+4.8%
2025 estimate
33,632
2020 estimate
32,102
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+
70.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime D
196 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate D
9.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$48,617
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Cost of living F
107.9 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Ithaca profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 98/100 (A+) · 70.2%
Violent crime: 48/100 (D) · 196 /100k
Poverty rate: 43/100 (D) · 9.1%
Household income: 18/100 (F) · $48,617
Cost of living: 12/100 (F) · 107.9 index
Where Ithaca sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Ithaca'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 - Ithaca highlighted among 26 peers.Read the chart values
Ithaca, NY (this city): home $330,100, crime 3,412/100k
Seguin, TX : home $227,000, crime 1,927/100k
San Pablo, CA : home $516,000, crime 3,135/100k
Carlsbad, NM : home $187,900, crime 3,316/100k
Rome, NY : home $137,200, crime 2,293/100k
Poughkeepsie, NY : home $259,200, crime 2,280/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Ithaca compare to other US cities?
Here's how Ithaca stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income17% higher than other cities
Home value69% pricier than other cities
Median rent78% pricier than other cities
Safety12% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at New York, Ithaca ranks #43 of 55 New York cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Ithaca against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to New York only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
New York-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Ithaca near the bottom of New York's cities
Among the 1,256 New York cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Ithaca ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Ithaca only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,109 of 1,205
8th percentile in New York
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,256
0th percentile in New York
Median Home Value
#458 of 1,202
62nd percentile in New York
Poverty Rate
#339 of 1,246
72nd percentile in New York
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#93 of 1,254
92nd percentile in New York
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 York only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
17th percentile nationally for median household income · 12th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Ithaca's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Ithaca'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 Ithaca's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$330,10031st percentilemore affordable than 31% 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
Ithaca's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,579 of 15,516
More affordable than 6% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,085 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.8×, Ithaca sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,579 of 15,516 and #3,085 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$48,617Ithaca, NY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Ithaca, NY median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Ithaca, NY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)70.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
31,792
Median Income
$48,617
Median Home Value
$330,100
Median Age
23.6
Poverty Rate
9.1%
Labor force participation
50.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
70.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3412.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
196.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3215.8
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
45.2°F
Annual Precipitation
41.7"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
13
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Ithaca's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
32,102 residents
2021
30,531 residents
2022
32,654 residents
2023
33,411 residents
2024
33,489 residents
2025
33,632 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
117
housing units authorized
Single-Family
54
detached homes
Multifamily
63
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
424
15
409
$57.9M
2020
56
0
56
$8.7M
2021
464
12
452
$79.4M
2022
141
85
56
$38.1M
2023
119
48
71
$26.1M
2024
117
54
63
$27.5M
Permit volume decreased 72% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
28.9%
Carpool
6.2%
Public Transit
11.0%
Walk
23.7%
Work from Home
26.2%
Other
4.0%
Based on 14,451 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
New York statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $285
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across New York at $285 (electricity about $130 , water and sewer about $65 ).
These are New York statewide averages, not a meter reading for Ithaca. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
New York's BEA cost-of-living index is 107.9 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Ithaca is $1,579/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to New York statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 69.4 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a New York statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Ithaca sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Ithaca compares to similar-size New York 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.