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Place dossier plate
SheetTN-CAMDEN-TN · Camden, TN 3,664 pop · income 17th pct · 5 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 Camden
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Camden on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Tiptonville · lowest
22,979
Tiptonville · lowest
22,979 median HH income
19.2% of the leader · rank #1
Euclid · near
48,696
Euclid · near
48,696 median HH income
40.7% of the leader · rank #2
Camden · this city
48,700
Camden · this city
48,700 median HH income
40.7% of the leader · rank #3
Encinal · near
48,702
Encinal · near
48,702 median HH income
40.7% of the leader · rank #4
Hathaway Pines · near
48,705
Hathaway Pines · near
48,705 median HH income
40.7% of the leader · rank #5
Clyde · near
48,705
Clyde · near
48,705 median HH income
40.7% of the leader · rank #6
Lake Holm · highest
119,608
Lake Holm · highest
119,608 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 Camden 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: 3,664.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Camden - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Camden lands in the 17th percentile for household income and the 56th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
17th
percentile, household income
19th
percentile, home value
34th
percentile, median rent
56th
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: Camden, TN
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 3,664 residents in Camden, a small town within Tennessee. Households in Camden report a median income of $48,700 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 16.1%. Typical homes in Camden are valued around $123,600, and the median resident age is 39.5 years. About 17.4% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 53.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 6 residential building permits were authorized in Camden (Construction Slowdown), down 62% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Camden reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1193.7 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 60.0°F with 51.6 inches of precipitation per year and 2.7 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Tennessee run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Tennessee at 91.9 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,118 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $218 across Tennessee, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Natural-hazard exposure scores 52.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Camden'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 reported crime to schools and households to housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context to within-city variation to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Camden, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Camden?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1193.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 48% 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.
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 4 public schools within the city match. 17.4% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Camden?
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 Tennessee, the closest population matches are Gatlinburg (3,643 residents, $57,760 income); Tiptonville (3,687 residents, $22,979 income); Etowah (3,621 residents, $43,614 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Centre, AL (3,664 residents); Wilkesboro, NC (3,664 residents); Lake Holm, WA (3,664 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.
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.
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 Camden?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 16.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.5×
Home value
$123,600
Household income
$48,700
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Camden?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 85.4%. 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. 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.
Drive alone
85.4%
Work from home
3.2%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,492 workers age 16+.
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 60.0°F, with 51.6 inches of precipitation and 2.7 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Tennessee is 52.5 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)
52.5
Annual precipitation
51.6 in
Mean temperature
60.0°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +14 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 6 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
3,676
2025 estimate
3,690
Period change
+0.4%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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+
91.9 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+
81 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
17.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
16.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$48,700
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Camden profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 78/100 (B+) · 91.9 index
Violent crime: 75/100 (B+) · 81 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 27/100 (F) · 17.4%
Poverty rate: 21/100 (F) · 16.1%
Household income: 19/100 (F) · $48,700
Where Camden sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Camden'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 - Camden highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Camden, TN (this city): home $123,600, crime 1,194/100k
Centre, AL : home $166,300, crime 3,745/100k
Wilkesboro, NC : home $197,600, crime 5,613/100k
Camden, ME : home $473,800, crime 1,168/100k
Stanford, KY : home $154,000, crime 431/100k
Gatlinburg, TN : home $286,500, crime 3,438/100k
Tiptonville, TN : home $109,400, crime 1,586/100k
Etowah, TN : home $165,900, crime 565/100k
Jasper, TN : home $173,900, crime 856/100k
Centerville, TN : home $205,100, crime 503/100k
How does Camden compare to other US cities?
Camden measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income17% higher than other cities
Home value19% pricier than other cities
Median rent34% pricier than other cities
Safety56% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Tennessee and the picture shifts: Camden ranks #64 of 174 Tennessee cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Camden against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Tennessee only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Tennessee-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Camden near the bottom of Tennessee's cities
Among the 482 Tennessee cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Camden ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Camden only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#309 of 458
33rd percentile in Tennessee
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 482
0th percentile in Tennessee
Median Home Value
#359 of 455
21st percentile in Tennessee
Poverty Rate
#127 of 482
73rd percentile in Tennessee
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#228 of 482
52nd percentile in Tennessee
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 Tennessee only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
17th percentile nationally for median household income · 56th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Camden's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Camden'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 Camden's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$123,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 81% 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
Camden's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,190 of 15,516
More affordable than 73% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,763 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.5×, Camden sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,190 of 15,516 and #3,763 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$48,700Camden, TN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Camden, TN median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Camden, TN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)17.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)16.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)53.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
3,664
Median Income
$48,700
Median Home Value
$123,600
Median Age
39.5
Poverty Rate
16.1%
Labor force participation
53.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
17.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1193.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
81.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1112.3
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
60.0°F
Annual Precipitation
51.6"
Annual Snowfall
2.7"
Schools
Total Schools
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Camden's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
3,676 residents
2021
3,631 residents
2022
3,647 residents
2023
3,695 residents
2024
3,678 residents
2025
3,690 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
6
housing units authorized
Single-Family
6
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
16
16
0
$0.3M
2020
18
18
0
$0.3M
2021
4
4
0
$0.3M
2022
11
11
0
$0.4M
2023
3
3
0
$0.3M
2024
6
6
0
$0.4M
Permit volume decreased 62% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
85.4%
Carpool
5.2%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
3.2%
Other
6.2%
Based on 1,492 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Tennessee statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $218
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Tennessee at $218 (electricity about $120 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Tennessee statewide averages, not a meter reading for Camden. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Tennessee's BEA cost-of-living index is 91.9 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Camden is $1,118/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Tennessee statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 52.5 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Tennessee statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Camden sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Camden compares to similar-size Tennessee 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.