Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetOH-DEFIANCE-OH · Defiance, OH 16,830 pop · income 40th pct · 9 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 Defiance
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Defiance on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Belle Glade · lowest
47,191
Belle Glade · lowest
47,191 median HH income
31.6% of the leader · rank #1
Defiance · this city
63,118
Defiance · this city
63,118 median HH income
42.3% of the leader · rank #2
Noorvik · near
63,125
Noorvik · near
63,125 median HH income
42.3% of the leader · rank #3
Merino · near
63,125
Merino · near
63,125 median HH income
42.3% of the leader · rank #4
Elk River · near
63,125
Elk River · near
63,125 median HH income
42.3% of the leader · rank #5
Tetonia · near
63,125
Tetonia · near
63,125 median HH income
42.3% of the leader · rank #6
El Segundo · highest
149,149
El Segundo · highest
149,149 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 Defiance 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: 16,830.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Defiance - the verdict
Defiance ranks in the 40th percentile for household income and the 49th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
40th
percentile, household income
22nd
percentile, home value
22nd
percentile, median rent
49th
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: Defiance, OH
Ohio's Defiance is a small town, with 16,830 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Defiance brings in $63,118 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.1%. Typical homes in Defiance are valued around $134,600, and the median resident age is 41.3 years. About 22.8% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 58.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 24 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 50% from five years earlier. Defiance reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1396.5 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 50.4°F with 37.7 inches of precipitation per year and 24.2 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Ohio run below the national norm: the state registers 92.8 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,092 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Ohio's average monthly utility costs around $228 (state average). The average commute for Defiance workers runs 17.4 minutes, with 85.8% driving alone and 5.3% working from home. 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 Defiance'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 work and mobility to housing and income to within-city variation to population change to comparison shortlist to reported crime to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Defiance, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Defiance?
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 8 public schools within the city match. 22.8% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Defiance?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 85.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 17.4 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. 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.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Defiance?
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 Ohio, the closest population matches are Mount Vernon (16,802 residents, $54,335 income); Fairview Park (17,049 residents, $77,688 income); Norwalk (17,054 residents, $58,940 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Aberdeen, MD (16,831 residents); Hannibal, MO (16,825 residents); Belle Glade, FL (16,818 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Defiance?
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. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.1×
Home value
$134,600
Household income
$63,118
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Defiance growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -48 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 24 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.
2020 estimate
17,057
2025 estimate
17,009
Period change
-0.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Defiance?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1396.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 39% 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.
Total reported rate
1396.5
Violent rate
217.1
Property rate
1179.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 50.4°F, with 37.7 inches of precipitation and 24.2 inches of annual snowfall. 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
55.0
Annual precipitation
37.7 in
Mean temperature
50.4°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Below median income · poverty 8.1% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
92.8 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Ohio average
D
City profile score · Defiance, OH
49/100
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.
Poverty rate D
8.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
217 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share D
22.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$63,118
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Defiance profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 75/100 (B+) · 92.8 index
Poverty rate: 47/100 (D) · 8.1%
Violent crime: 45/100 (D) · 217 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 42/100 (D) · 22.8%
Household income: 39/100 (F) · $63,118
Where Defiance sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Defiance'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 - Defiance highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Defiance, OH (this city): home $134,600, crime 1,397/100k
Aberdeen, MD : home $239,000, crime 2,630/100k
Hannibal, MO : home $126,300, crime 2,762/100k
Belle Glade, FL : home $141,100, crime 3,987/100k
El Segundo, CA : home $1,521,600, crime 5,977/100k
Marion, IL : home $145,300, crime 3,399/100k
Norwalk, OH : home $156,000, crime 653/100k
Aurora, OH : home $371,400, crime 397/100k
Streetsboro, OH : home $197,000, crime 1,788/100k
Eastlake, OH : home $168,300, crime 1,923/100k
How does Defiance compare to other US cities?
Defiance measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income40% higher than other cities
Home value22% pricier than other cities
Median rent22% pricier than other cities
Safety49% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Ohio and the picture shifts: Defiance ranks #164 of 281 Ohio cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Defiance 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 Defiance near the bottom of Ohio's cities
Among the 1,196 Ohio cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Defiance ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Defiance only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#625 of 1,145
45th percentile in Ohio
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,196
0th percentile in Ohio
Median Home Value
#665 of 1,164
43rd percentile in Ohio
Poverty Rate
#513 of 1,196
57th percentile in Ohio
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#456 of 1,196
62nd 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
40th percentile nationally for median household income · 49th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Defiance's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Defiance'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 Defiance's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$134,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 78% 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
Defiance's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#2,147 of 15,516
More affordable than 86% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#109 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.1×, Defiance sits in the affordable band:
national rank #2,147 of 15,516 and #109 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
$63,118Defiance, OH median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Defiance, 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 Defiance, OH.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)22.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
16,830
Median Income
$63,118
Median Home Value
$134,600
Median Age
41.3
Poverty Rate
8.1%
Labor force participation
58.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
22.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1396.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
217.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1179.4
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
50.4°F
Annual Precipitation
37.7"
Annual Snowfall
24.2"
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
Defiance's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,057 residents
2021
16,989 residents
2022
16,966 residents
2023
17,002 residents
2024
17,033 residents
2025
17,009 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
24
housing units authorized
Single-Family
18
detached homes
Multifamily
6
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
16
16
0
$2.7M
2020
16
10
6
$3.3M
2021
18
10
8
$4.2M
2022
13
7
6
$2.7M
2023
13
11
2
$4.3M
2024
24
18
6
$7.5M
Permit volume increased 50% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
17.4 minutes
Drive Alone
85.8%
Carpool
5.4%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
2.7%
Work from Home
5.3%
Other
0.8%
Based on 7,920 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 Defiance. 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 Defiance 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 Defiance sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Defiance 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 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.