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Place dossier plate
SheetNY-ROCKVILLE-CENTRE-NY · Rockville Centre, NY 25,770 pop · income 93rd 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 Rockville Centre
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Rockville Centre on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Elmira · lowest
43,089
Elmira · lowest
43,089 median HH income
23.2% of the leader · rank #1
Shrewsbury · near
144,500
Shrewsbury · near
144,500 median HH income
77.9% of the leader · rank #2
Bayside · near
144,500
Bayside · near
144,500 median HH income
77.9% of the leader · rank #3
San Antonio H… · near
144,509
San Antonio H… · near
144,509 median HH income
77.9% of the leader · rank #4
Pleasant Hill · near
144,513
Pleasant Hill · near
144,513 median HH income
77.9% of the leader · rank #5
Rockville Cen… · this city
144,516
Rockville Cen… · this city
144,516 median HH income
77.9% of the leader · rank #6
Plainview · highest
185,531
Plainview · highest
185,531 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 Rockville Centre 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: 25,770.
Rockville Centre ranks in the 93rd percentile for household income nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS.
93rd
percentile, household income
95th
percentile, home value
78th
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: Rockville Centre, NY
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 25,770 residents in Rockville Centre, a small city within New York. Median household income here is $144,516 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 3.0%. Home values in Rockville Centre run a median of $796,100, and the median resident age is 43.8 years. 62.9% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 60.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 4 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Rapid Growth), up 33% from five years earlier.
New York carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts New York at 107.9 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,579 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $285 across New York, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 27.8 minutes, with 49.3% driving alone and 25.5% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. 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 Rockville Centre'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 population change to work and mobility to schools and households to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Rockville Centre, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Rockville Centre?
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 New York, the closest population matches are Medford (25,681 residents, $128,631 income); Peekskill (25,484 residents, $91,042 income); Plainview (26,251 residents, $185,531 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Staunton, VA (25,765 residents); El Cerrito, CA (25,781 residents); Sebastian, FL (25,759 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.
Is Rockville Centre growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -98 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 4 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
What does the journey to work look like in Rockville Centre?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 49.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 27.8 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. 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.
What does the education layer cover for Rockville Centre?
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. 62.9% 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.
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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Rockville Centre?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
5.5×
Home value
$796,100
Household income
$144,516
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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 A+
$144,516
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A+
62.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate B+
3.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
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.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Rockville Centre profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 95/100 (A+) · $144,516
Bachelor's+ share: 93/100 (A+) · 62.9%
Poverty rate: 79/100 (B+) · 3.0%
Cost of living: 12/100 (F) · 107.9 index
How does Rockville Centre compare to other US cities?
Here's how Rockville Centre stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income93% higher than other cities
Home value95% pricier than other cities
Median rent78% 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 Rockville Centre 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 Rockville Centre near the bottom of New York's cities
Among the 1,256 New York cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Rockville Centre ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Rockville Centre only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#193 of 1,205
84th percentile in New York
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,256
0th percentile in New York
Median Home Value
#134 of 1,202
89th percentile in New York
Poverty Rate
#776 of 1,246
37th percentile in New York
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#163 of 1,254
87th 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
93rd percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Rockville Centre's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$796,1005th percentilemore affordable than 5% 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
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,593 of 15,516
More affordable than 12% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,819 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 5.5×, Rockville Centre sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,593 of 15,516 and #2,819 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
$144,516Rockville Centre, NY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Rockville Centre, 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 Rockville Centre, NY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)62.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
25,770
Median Income
$144,516
Median Home Value
$796,100
Median Age
43.8
Poverty Rate
3.0%
Labor force participation
60.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
62.9%
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
Rockville Centre's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
25,868 residents
2021
25,835 residents
2022
25,708 residents
2023
25,673 residents
2024
25,785 residents
2025
25,770 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Rapid Growth
Total Permits (2024)
4
housing units authorized
Single-Family
4
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
3
3
0
$1.4M
2020
5
5
0
$2.4M
2021
4
4
0
$1.9M
2022
3
3
0
$1.5M
2023
5
5
0
$2.5M
2024
4
4
0
$1.1M
Permit volume increased 33% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
27.8 minutes
Drive Alone
49.3%
Carpool
4.9%
Public Transit
15.9%
Walk
1.9%
Work from Home
25.5%
Other
2.5%
Based on 12,176 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 Rockville Centre. 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 Rockville Centre 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 Rockville Centre sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Rockville Centre 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, 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.