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Place dossier plate
SheetOR-WEST-LINN-OR · West Linn, OR 27,065 pop · income 92nd 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 West Linn
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest West Linn on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Carrollton · lowest
51,553
Carrollton · lowest
51,553 median HH income
37.2% of the leader · rank #1
Fruitland · near
138,500
Fruitland · near
138,500 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
Hacienda San… · near
138,523
Hacienda San… · near
138,523 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #3
West Linn · this city
138,526
West Linn · this city
138,526 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #4
San Pasqual · near
138,542
San Pasqual · near
138,542 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #5
Dalworthingto… · near
138,542
Dalworthingto… · near
138,542 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
Shawneetown · highest
138,571
Shawneetown · highest
138,571 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 West Linn 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: 27,065.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
West Linn - the verdict
West Linn ranks in the 92nd percentile for household income and the 71st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
92nd
percentile, household income
94th
percentile, home value
66th
percentile, median rent
71st
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: West Linn, OR
Oregon's West Linn is a small city, with 27,065 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $138,526 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 3.2%. Typical homes in West Linn are valued around $733,300, and the median resident age is 43.3 years. About 62.5% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 56.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 47 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 68% from five years earlier. West Linn reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 833.9 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).
Oregon carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Oregon scores 103.4 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,425 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Oregon's average monthly utility costs around $185 (state average). FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 63.4 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of West Linn'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 housing and income to schools and households to population change to work and mobility to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For West Linn, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates.
No matched row is reported here for 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 West Linn?
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 Oregon, the closest population matches are Woodburn (26,845 residents, $67,469 income); Tualatin (27,710 residents, $105,073 income); Forest Grove (26,406 residents, $81,998 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Kahului, HI (27,068 residents); Gladstone, MO (27,069 residents); Carrollton, GA (27,058 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.
How far does income reach against housing in West Linn?
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 5.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What does the education layer cover for West Linn?
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 9 public schools within the city match. 62.5% 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.
Is West Linn growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -798 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 47 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in West Linn?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 58.4%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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.
Drive alone
58.4%
Work from home
31.9%
Public transit
1.3%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 11,798 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in West Linn?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 833.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 63% 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
833.9
Violent rate
56.9
Property rate
777.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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+
$138,526
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A+
62.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime A-
57 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate B+
3.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
103.4 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
West Linn profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 93/100 (A+) · $138,526
Bachelor's+ share: 93/100 (A+) · 62.5%
Violent crime: 82/100 (A-) · 57 /100k
Poverty rate: 77/100 (B+) · 3.2%
Cost of living: 25/100 (F) · 103.4 index
Where West Linn sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
West Linn'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 - West Linn highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
West Linn, OR (this city): home $733,300, crime 834/100k
Gladstone, MO : home $217,900, crime 2,073/100k
Carrollton, GA : home $283,100, crime 1,927/100k
Round Lake Beach, IL : home $191,200, crime 983/100k
Lemoore, CA : home $319,200, crime 1,494/100k
Woodburn, OR : home $308,400, crime 3,169/100k
Tualatin, OR : home $595,800, crime 2,844/100k
Forest Grove, OR : home $464,300, crime 1,704/100k
How does West Linn compare to other US cities?
West Linn measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income92% higher than other cities
Home value94% pricier than other cities
Median rent66% pricier than other cities
Safety71% 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 Oregon alone, West Linn ranks #10 of 85 Oregon 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 West Linn against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Oregon only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Oregon-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places West Linn near the bottom of Oregon's cities
Among the 395 Oregon cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, West Linn ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares West Linn only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#14 of 364
96th percentile in Oregon
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 395
0th percentile in Oregon
Median Home Value
#19 of 366
95th percentile in Oregon
Poverty Rate
#274 of 395
30th percentile in Oregon
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#21 of 395
95th percentile in Oregon
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 Oregon only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
92nd percentile nationally for median household income · 71st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
West Linn's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
West Linn'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 West Linn's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$733,3006th percentilemore affordable than 6% 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
West Linn's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,309 of 15,516
More affordable than 14% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,736 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 5.3×, West Linn sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,309 of 15,516 and #2,736 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
$138,526West Linn, OR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context West Linn, OR median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for West Linn, OR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)62.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)56.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
27,065
Median Income
$138,526
Median Home Value
$733,300
Median Age
43.3
Poverty Rate
3.2%
Labor force participation
56.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
62.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
833.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
56.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
777.0
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
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
West Linn's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
27,365 residents
2021
27,158 residents
2022
26,898 residents
2023
26,639 residents
2024
26,560 residents
2025
26,567 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
47
housing units authorized
Single-Family
47
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
28
28
0
$12.9M
2020
22
22
0
$10.7M
2021
37
37
0
$18.1M
2022
27
27
0
$16.6M
2023
16
16
0
$9.4M
2024
47
47
0
$27.2M
Permit volume increased 68% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
58.4%
Carpool
5.1%
Public Transit
1.3%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
31.9%
Other
2.0%
Based on 11,798 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Oregon statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $185
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Oregon at $185 (electricity about $85 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Oregon statewide averages, not a meter reading for West Linn. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Oregon's BEA cost-of-living index is 103.4 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around West Linn is $1,425/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Oregon statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 63.4 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Oregon statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county West Linn sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How West Linn compares to similar-size Oregon 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.