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Place dossier plate
SheetSD-RAPID-CITY-SD · Rapid City, SD 76,836 pop · income 44th pct · 25 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 Rapid City
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Rapid City on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Huron · lowest
51,556
Huron · lowest
51,556 median HH income
36.0% of the leader · rank #1
Rapid City · this city
65,712
Rapid City · this city
65,712 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #2
D'Iberville · near
65,712
D'Iberville · near
65,712 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #3
Bennett · near
65,714
Bennett · near
65,714 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #4
Kingsley · near
65,714
Kingsley · near
65,714 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #5
Stewartville · near
65,714
Stewartville · near
65,714 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #6
Castle Rock · highest
143,031
Castle Rock · highest
143,031 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 Rapid City 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: 76,836.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Rapid City - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Rapid City lands in the 44th percentile for household income and the 5th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
44th
percentile, household income
60th
percentile, home value
13th
percentile, median rent
5th
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: Rapid City, SD
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 76,836 residents in Rapid City, a small city within South Dakota. Households in Rapid City report a median income of $65,712 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.8%. Typical homes in Rapid City are valued around $270,000, and the median resident age is 39.0 years. 36.4% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 60.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 866 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 135% from five years earlier. Rapid City's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 4511.0 crimes per 100,000 residents, above the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Rapid City's yearly average temperature at 46.3°F with 18.8 inches of precipitation per year and 36.1 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in South Dakota run below the national norm: the state registers 88.6 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $990 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $200 across South Dakota, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. The average commute for Rapid City workers runs 15.7 minutes, with 76.4% driving alone and 10.0% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 26.8 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Rapid City'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 comparison shortlist to schools and households to climate and hazard context to population change to housing and income to within-city variation to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Rapid City, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, local building permits.
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 Rapid City?
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 76.4%. The reported mean trip to work is 15.7 minutes.
Which cities make useful reference points for Rapid City?
Within South Dakota, the closest population matches are Aberdeen (28,297 residents, $63,715 income); Brookings (23,710 residents, $61,979 income); Watertown (22,859 residents, $62,721 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Wyoming, MI (76,865 residents); Alameda, CA (76,876 residents); Schaumburg, IL (76,780 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 Rapid City?
The NCES join finds 26 public schools within the city match. 36.4% 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.
What can 25 Census tracts reveal inside Rapid City?
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 25 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.
Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Rapid City?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 46.3°F, with 18.8 inches of precipitation and 36.1 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for South Dakota is 26.8 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
46.3°F
Annual precipitation
18.8 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
26.8
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Rapid City growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +5,642 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +7.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 866 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
+7.5%
2025 estimate
80,589
2020 estimate
74,947
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Rapid City?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.8%, 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. 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.
Household income
$65,712
Home value
$270,000
Value / income
4.1×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Rapid City?
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 4511.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 98% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
3792.1
Violent rate
718.9
Total reported rate
4511.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 7.8% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
88.6 (US=100)
Very affordable · BEA RPP 2024, South Dakota average
C-
City profile score · Rapid City, SD
50/100
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 A+
88.6 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share B-
36.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
7.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income D
$65,712
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
719 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Rapid City profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 91/100 (A+) · 88.6 index
Bachelor's+ share: 69/100 (B-) · 36.4%
Poverty rate: 48/100 (D) · 7.8%
Household income: 43/100 (D) · $65,712
Violent crime: 5/100 (F) · 719 /100k
Where Rapid City sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Rapid City'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 - Rapid City highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Rapid City, SD (this city): home $270,000, crime 4,511/100k
Wyoming, MI : home $203,900, crime 2,616/100k
Alameda, CA : home $1,203,900, crime 5,231/100k
Schaumburg, IL : home $312,200, crime 2,489/100k
Woodbury, MN : home $434,900, crime 1,279/100k
Castle Rock, CO : home $621,700, crime 974/100k
Bethlehem, PA : home $236,500, crime 1,575/100k
Aberdeen, SD : home $205,500, crime 1,678/100k
Brookings, SD : home $243,600, crime 1,262/100k
Watertown, SD : home $212,300, crime 1,328/100k
Mitchell, SD : home $182,000, crime 2,230/100k
Yankton, SD : home $202,300, crime 2,242/100k
Huron, SD : home $164,700, crime 1,805/100k
How does Rapid City compare to other US cities?
Rapid City measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income44% higher than other cities
Home value60% pricier than other cities
Median rent13% pricier than other cities
Safety5% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just South Dakota and the picture shifts: Rapid City ranks #33 of 34 South Dakota cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Rapid City against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to South Dakota only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
South Dakota-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Rapid City near the bottom of South Dakota's cities
Among the 303 South Dakota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Rapid City ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Rapid City only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#116 of 285
59th percentile in South Dakota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 303
0th percentile in South Dakota
Median Home Value
#29 of 263
89th percentile in South Dakota
Poverty Rate
#121 of 302
60th percentile in South Dakota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#31 of 303
90th percentile in South Dakota
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 South Dakota only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
44th percentile nationally for median household income · 5th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Rapid City's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Rapid City'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 Rapid City's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$270,00040th percentilemore affordable than 40% 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
Rapid City's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#11,003 of 15,516
More affordable than 29% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#322 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 4.1×, Rapid City sits in the moderate band:
national rank #11,003 of 15,516 and #322 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
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
$65,712Rapid City, SD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Rapid City, SD median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Rapid City, SD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)36.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
76,836
Median Income
$65,712
Median Home Value
$270,000
Median Age
39.0
Poverty Rate
7.8%
Labor force participation
60.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
36.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
4511.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
718.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3792.1
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
46.3°F
Annual Precipitation
18.8"
Annual Snowfall
36.1"
Schools
Total Schools
26
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Rapid City's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
74,947 residents
2021
76,799 residents
2022
78,739 residents
2023
79,420 residents
2024
80,144 residents
2025
80,589 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
866
housing units authorized
Single-Family
144
detached homes
Multifamily
722
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
11.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
368
204
164
$66.0M
2020
913
259
654
$120.6M
2021
1,099
280
819
$171.4M
2022
729
241
488
$139.2M
2023
1,167
187
980
$185.6M
2024
866
144
722
$173.3M
Permit volume increased 135% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
15.7 minutes
Drive Alone
76.4%
Carpool
9.1%
Public Transit
0.4%
Walk
1.8%
Work from Home
10.0%
Other
2.3%
Based on 37,894 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
South Dakota statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $200
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across South Dakota at $200 (electricity about $95 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are South Dakota statewide averages, not a meter reading for Rapid City. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
South Dakota's BEA cost-of-living index is 88.6 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Rapid City is $990/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to South Dakota statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 26.8 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a South Dakota statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Rapid City sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Rapid City compares to similar-size South Dakota 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.