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Place dossier plate
SheetOH-NORWALK-OH · Norwalk, OH 17,054 pop · income 34th pct · 13 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 Norwalk
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Norwalk on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
New Port Rich… · lowest
46,160
New Port Rich… · lowest
46,160 median HH income
36.8% of the leader · rank #1
Isabel · near
58,938
Isabel · near
58,938 median HH income
46.9% of the leader · rank #2
Garland · near
58,938
Garland · near
58,938 median HH income
46.9% of the leader · rank #3
Mendota · near
58,939
Mendota · near
58,939 median HH income
46.9% of the leader · rank #4
Norwalk · this city
58,940
Norwalk · this city
58,940 median HH income
46.9% of the leader · rank #5
Zebulon · near
58,940
Zebulon · near
58,940 median HH income
46.9% of the leader · rank #6
Aurora · highest
125,567
Aurora · highest
125,567 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 Norwalk 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: 17,054.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Norwalk - the verdict
Norwalk ranks in the 34th percentile for household income and the 79th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
34th
percentile, household income
29th
percentile, home value
22nd
percentile, median rent
79th
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: Norwalk, OH
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 17,054 residents in Norwalk, a small town within Ohio. The typical household in Norwalk brings in $58,940 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 10.2%. Home values in Norwalk run a median of $156,000, and the median resident age is 39.7 years. About 20.3% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 58.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 10 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 67% from five years earlier. Norwalk reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 652.5 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
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. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Ohio run around $228, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Natural-hazard exposure scores 55.0 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Norwalk'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 work and mobility to schools and households to population change to reported crime to within-city variation to housing and income to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Norwalk, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Norwalk?
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 82.6%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
The NCES join finds 6 public schools within the city match. 20.3% 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.
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 13 Census tracts to this city.
Which cities make useful reference points for Norwalk?
Within Ohio, the closest population matches are Fairview Park (17,049 residents, $77,688 income); Defiance (16,830 residents, $63,118 income); Mount Vernon (16,802 residents, $54,335 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are New Port Richey, FL (17,057 residents); Safety Harbor, FL (17,040 residents); Aberdeen, WA (17,040 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.
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 Norwalk 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 +161 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 10 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
+0.9%
2025 estimate
17,191
2020 estimate
17,030
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Norwalk?
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 652.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 71% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
611.7
Violent rate
40.8
Total reported rate
652.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Norwalk?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 10.2%, 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.
Household income
$58,940
Home value
$156,000
Value / income
2.6×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Below median income · poverty 10.2% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
92.8 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Ohio average
C-
City profile score · Norwalk, OH
54/100
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.
Violent crime A
41 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
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 F
10.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$58,940
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Norwalk profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 86/100 (A) · 41 /100k
Cost of living: 75/100 (B+) · 92.8 index
Poverty rate: 39/100 (F) · 10.2%
Bachelor's+ share: 35/100 (F) · 20.3%
Household income: 33/100 (F) · $58,940
Where Norwalk sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Norwalk'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 - Norwalk highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Norwalk, OH (this city): home $156,000, crime 653/100k
Safety Harbor, FL : home $433,300, crime 821/100k
Aberdeen, WA : home $225,100, crime 3,345/100k
Pendleton, OR : home $276,400, crime 3,090/100k
Defiance, OH : home $134,600, crime 1,397/100k
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 Norwalk compare to other US cities?
Here's how Norwalk stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income34% higher than other cities
Home value29% pricier than other cities
Median rent22% pricier than other cities
Safety79% 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, Norwalk ranks #66 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 Norwalk 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 Norwalk near the bottom of Ohio's cities
Among the 1,196 Ohio cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Norwalk ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Norwalk only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#720 of 1,145
37th percentile in Ohio
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,196
0th percentile in Ohio
Median Home Value
#520 of 1,164
55th percentile in Ohio
Poverty Rate
#429 of 1,196
64th percentile in Ohio
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#532 of 1,196
55th 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
34th percentile nationally for median household income · 79th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Norwalk's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Norwalk'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 Norwalk's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$156,000Among the most affordablemore affordable than 71% 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
Norwalk's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,746 of 15,516
More affordable than 69% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#491 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.6×, Norwalk sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,746 of 15,516 and #491 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
$58,940Norwalk, OH median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Norwalk, 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 Norwalk, OH.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)10.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
17,054
Median Income
$58,940
Median Home Value
$156,000
Median Age
39.7
Poverty Rate
10.2%
Labor force participation
58.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
652.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
40.8
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
611.7
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
Norwalk's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,030 residents
2021
17,000 residents
2022
17,058 residents
2023
17,125 residents
2024
17,190 residents
2025
17,191 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
10
housing units authorized
Single-Family
10
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
6
4
2
$0.7M
2020
9
7
2
$1.8M
2021
104
9
95
$10.5M
2022
61
6
55
$7.0M
2023
43
5
38
$6.1M
2024
10
10
0
$4.0M
Permit volume increased 67% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
82.6%
Carpool
10.0%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.8%
Work from Home
5.6%
Other
1.0%
Based on 7,780 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 Norwalk. 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 Norwalk 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 Norwalk sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Norwalk 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, 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.