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Place dossier plate
SheetOH-BELLEFONTAINE-OH · Bellefontaine, OH 14,051 pop · income 36th pct · 11 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 Bellefontaine
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Bellefontaine on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Circleville · lowest
56,225
Circleville · lowest
56,225 median HH income
27.0% of the leader · rank #1
Kendall · near
60,291
Kendall · near
60,291 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #2
Fort Wayne · near
60,293
Fort Wayne · near
60,293 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #3
Knob Noster · near
60,294
Knob Noster · near
60,294 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #4
Bellefontaine · this city
60,296
Bellefontaine · this city
60,296 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #5
Rochester · near
60,304
Rochester · near
60,304 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #6
Mill Valley · highest
208,466
Mill Valley · highest
208,466 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 Bellefontaine 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: 14,051.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Bellefontaine - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Bellefontaine places in the 36th percentile for household income and the 68th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
36th
percentile, household income
31st
percentile, home value
22nd
percentile, median rent
68th
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: Bellefontaine, OH
Bellefontaine is a small town in Ohio, home to 14,051 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Bellefontaine households earn a median of $60,296 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 13.9%. Typical homes in Bellefontaine are valued around $163,500, and the median resident age is 36.1 years. 14.5% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Bellefontaine reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 896.1 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Bellefontaine's yearly average temperature at 50.6°F with 42.6 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in Ohio run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Ohio scores 92.8 (Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,092 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Ohio run around $228, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 55.0 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Bellefontaine'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 population change to reported crime to within-city variation to work and mobility to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Bellefontaine, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Bellefontaine?
Within Ohio, the closest population matches are Sharonville (13,989 residents, $70,781 income); Circleville (14,144 residents, $56,225 income); Willowick (14,182 residents, $74,138 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Artondale, WA (14,051 residents); Greece, NY (14,053 residents); Newport, KY (14,039 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.
What does the education layer cover for Bellefontaine?
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 14.5% 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 Bellefontaine?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 13.9%, 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 11 Census tracts reveal inside Bellefontaine?
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 11 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.
Population change
Is Bellefontaine growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +42 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.3% 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.
Period change
+0.3%
2025 estimate
14,151
2020 estimate
14,109
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Bellefontaine?
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 896.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 61% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
789.4
Violent rate
106.7
Total reported rate
896.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Bellefontaine?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.1%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.3%
Work from home
3.1%
Drive alone
75.1%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 6,515 workers age 16+.
What physical conditions frame life in Bellefontaine?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 50.6°F, with 42.6 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Ohio is 55.0 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.
Mean temperature
50.6°F
Annual precipitation
42.6 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
55.0
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Below median income · poverty 13.9% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
92.8 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Ohio average
D
City profile score · Bellefontaine, OH
45/100
5 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+
92.8 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 B-
107 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$60,296
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
13.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
14.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Bellefontaine profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 75/100 (B+) · 92.8 index
Violent crime: 69/100 (B-) · 107 /100k
Household income: 35/100 (F) · $60,296
Poverty rate: 25/100 (F) · 13.9%
Bachelor's+ share: 19/100 (F) · 14.5%
Where Bellefontaine sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Bellefontaine'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 - Bellefontaine highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Bellefontaine, OH (this city): home $163,500, crime 896/100k
Newport, KY : home $221,100, crime 4,167/100k
Mill Valley, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 1,098/100k
New Ulm, MN : home $192,700, crime 1,090/100k
Sharonville, OH : home $207,900, crime 2,201/100k
Circleville, OH : home $182,400, crime 1,983/100k
Willowick, OH : home $156,100, crime 355/100k
Powell, OH : home $493,500, crime 920/100k
Lyndhurst, OH : home $198,900, crime 1,188/100k
Beachwood, OH : home $381,600, crime 2,275/100k
How does Bellefontaine compare to other US cities?
Here's how Bellefontaine stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income36% higher than other cities
Home value31% pricier than other cities
Median rent22% pricier than other cities
Safety68% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Ohio alone, Bellefontaine ranks #106 of 281 Ohio cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Bellefontaine against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Ohio only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Ohio-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Bellefontaine near the bottom of Ohio's cities
Among the 1,196 Ohio cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Bellefontaine ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Bellefontaine only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#699 of 1,145
39th percentile in Ohio
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,196
0th percentile in Ohio
Median Home Value
#468 of 1,164
60th percentile in Ohio
Poverty Rate
#283 of 1,196
76th percentile in Ohio
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#736 of 1,196
38th percentile in Ohio
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 Ohio only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
36th percentile nationally for median household income · 68th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Bellefontaine's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Bellefontaine'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 Bellefontaine's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$163,500Among the most affordablemore affordable than 69% 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
Bellefontaine's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,087 of 15,516
More affordable than 67% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#558 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.7×, Bellefontaine sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,087 of 15,516 and #558 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
$60,296Bellefontaine, OH median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Bellefontaine, OH median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Bellefontaine, OH.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)14.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)13.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,051
Median Income
$60,296
Median Home Value
$163,500
Median Age
36.1
Poverty Rate
13.9%
Labor force participation
61.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
14.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
896.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
106.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
789.4
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
50.6°F
Annual Precipitation
42.6"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Bellefontaine's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
14,109 residents
2021
14,115 residents
2022
14,096 residents
2023
14,081 residents
2024
14,102 residents
2025
14,151 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
75.1%
Carpool
16.2%
Public Transit
0.3%
Walk
3.3%
Work from Home
3.1%
Other
2.0%
Based on 6,515 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Ohio statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $228
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Ohio at $228 (electricity about $105 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Ohio statewide averages, not a meter reading for Bellefontaine. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Ohio's BEA cost-of-living index is 92.8 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Bellefontaine is $1,092/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Ohio statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 55.0 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Ohio statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Bellefontaine sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Bellefontaine compares to similar-size Ohio 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.