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Place dossier plate
SheetTN-COOKEVILLE-TN · Cookeville, TN 35,544 pop · income 17th pct · 18 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 Cookeville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Cookeville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Morristown · lowest
44,811
Morristown · lowest
44,811 median HH income
30.9% of the leader · rank #1
Leachville · near
48,500
Leachville · near
48,500 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #2
New Douglas · near
48,500
New Douglas · near
48,500 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #3
Cromwell · near
48,500
Cromwell · near
48,500 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #4
Oxford · near
48,500
Oxford · near
48,500 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #5
Cookeville · this city
48,501
Cookeville · this city
48,501 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #6
Germantown · highest
144,799
Germantown · highest
144,799 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 Cookeville 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: 35,544.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Cookeville - the verdict
Cookeville ranks in the 17th percentile for household income and the 33rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
17th
percentile, household income
58th
percentile, home value
34th
percentile, median rent
33rd
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: Cookeville, TN
35,544 people live in Cookeville, Tennessee - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Cookeville households earn a median of $48,501 annually, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 15.6%. Cookeville's housing stock carries a median value of $263,800, and the median resident age is 29.6 years. Educational attainment runs 35.4% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 58.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 422 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Rapid Growth), up 39% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1954.5 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 57.4°F with 60.0 inches of precipitation per year and 6.1 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Tennessee run below the national norm: the state registers 91.9 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,118 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Tennessee's average monthly utility costs around $218 (state average). 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 Cookeville'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 housing and income to population change to work and mobility to reported crime to within-city variation to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Cookeville, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, annual population history, local building permits, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Cookeville?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.6%, 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.
Is Cookeville 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 +3,240 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +9.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 422 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What can 18 Census tracts reveal inside Cookeville?
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 18 Census tracts to this city.
Which cities make useful reference points for Cookeville?
Within Tennessee, the closest population matches are Maryville (32,196 residents, $79,340 income); La Vergne (38,944 residents, $80,418 income); Oak Ridge (32,088 residents, $71,000 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Richmond, IN (35,551 residents); Wenatchee, WA (35,502 residents); Richmond, KY (35,498 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Cookeville?
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 78.1%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.3%
Work from home
7.6%
Drive alone
78.1%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 16,644 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Cookeville?
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 1954.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 14% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1661.8
Violent rate
292.6
Total reported rate
1954.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What physical conditions frame life in Cookeville?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 57.4°F, with 60.0 inches of precipitation and 6.1 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.
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
57.4°F
Annual precipitation
60.0 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
52.5
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What does the education layer cover for Cookeville?
The NCES join finds 15 public schools within the city match. 35.4% 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.
Matched public schools
15
Bachelor's degree+
35.4%
Poverty estimate
15.6%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
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.
Bachelor's+ share B-
35.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
293 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate F
15.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$48,501
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Cookeville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 78/100 (B+) · 91.9 index
Bachelor's+ share: 67/100 (B-) · 35.4%
Violent crime: 34/100 (F) · 293 /100k
Poverty rate: 21/100 (F) · 15.6%
Household income: 18/100 (F) · $48,501
Where Cookeville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Cookeville'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 - Cookeville highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Cookeville, TN (this city): home $263,800, crime 1,955/100k
Wenatchee, WA : home $391,200, crime 3,023/100k
Richmond, KY : home $205,900, crime 2,188/100k
Monroe, NC : home $270,600, crime 3,987/100k
Torrington, CT : home $195,800, crime 1,120/100k
Maryville, TN : home $310,600, crime 638/100k
La Vergne, TN : home $273,700, crime 2,311/100k
Oak Ridge, TN : home $233,500, crime 1,567/100k
Morristown, TN : home $155,700, crime 3,236/100k
Germantown, TN : home $441,200, crime 1,345/100k
Mount Juliet, TN : home $423,000, crime 1,124/100k
How does Cookeville compare to other US cities?
Cookeville 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 value58% pricier than other cities
Median rent34% pricier than other cities
Safety33% 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 Tennessee alone, Cookeville ranks #108 of 174 Tennessee 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 Cookeville 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 Cookeville near the bottom of Tennessee's cities
Among the 482 Tennessee cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Cookeville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Cookeville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#313 of 458
32nd percentile in Tennessee
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 482
0th percentile in Tennessee
Median Home Value
#99 of 455
78th percentile in Tennessee
Poverty Rate
#134 of 482
72nd percentile in Tennessee
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#67 of 482
86th 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 · 33rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Cookeville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Cookeville'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 Cookeville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$263,80042nd percentilemore affordable than 42% 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
Cookeville's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,497 of 15,516
More affordable than 13% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,793 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 5.4×, Cookeville sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,497 of 15,516 and #2,793 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
$48,501Cookeville, TN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Cookeville, 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 Cookeville, TN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)35.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.6%
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
35,544
Median Income
$48,501
Median Home Value
$263,800
Median Age
29.6
Poverty Rate
15.6%
Labor force participation
58.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
35.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1954.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
292.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1661.8
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
57.4°F
Annual Precipitation
60.0"
Annual Snowfall
6.1"
Schools
Total Schools
15
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Cookeville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
34,972 residents
2021
35,572 residents
2022
36,097 residents
2023
36,727 residents
2024
37,202 residents
2025
38,212 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Rapid Growth
Total Permits (2024)
422
housing units authorized
Single-Family
338
detached homes
Multifamily
84
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
11.9
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
303
213
90
$40.5M
2020
331
233
98
$44.2M
2021
248
150
98
$54.4M
2022
232
183
49
$54.4M
2023
309
309
0
$59.2M
2024
422
338
84
$89.2M
Permit volume increased 39% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
78.1%
Carpool
9.5%
Public Transit
0.3%
Walk
3.9%
Work from Home
7.6%
Other
0.6%
Based on 16,644 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 Cookeville. 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 Cookeville 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 Cookeville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Cookeville 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.