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Place dossier plate
SheetTN-FRANKLIN-TN · Franklin, TN 85,575 pop · income 85th pct · 46 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 Franklin
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Franklin on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Kingsport · lowest
50,436
Kingsport · lowest
50,436 median HH income
25.6% of the leader · rank #1
Franklin · this city
115,000
Franklin · this city
115,000 median HH income
58.3% of the leader · rank #2
Menominee · near
115,000
Menominee · near
115,000 median HH income
58.3% of the leader · rank #3
Grand Beach · near
115,000
Grand Beach · near
115,000 median HH income
58.3% of the leader · rank #4
Shoal Creek E… · near
115,000
Shoal Creek E… · near
115,000 median HH income
58.3% of the leader · rank #5
Bainville · near
115,000
Bainville · near
115,000 median HH income
58.3% of the leader · rank #6
San Ramon · highest
197,358
San Ramon · highest
197,358 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 Franklin 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: 85,575.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Franklin - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Franklin places in the 85th percentile for household income and the 61st percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
85th
percentile, household income
91st
percentile, home value
34th
percentile, median rent
61st
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: Franklin, TN
Tennessee's Franklin is a small city, with 85,575 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Franklin brings in $115,000 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 3.0%. Typical homes in Franklin are valued around $646,300, and the median resident age is 37.8 years. Educational attainment runs 64.3% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 67.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 945 residential building permits were authorized in Franklin (Slowing), down 14% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Franklin reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1074.6 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).
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. Monthly utility costs average around $218 across Tennessee, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 52.5 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Franklin'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 reported crime to schools and households to housing and income to population change to within-city variation to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Franklin, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Franklin?
Within Tennessee, the closest population matches are Johnson City (71,455 residents, $55,429 income); Jackson (68,098 residents, $51,552 income); Hendersonville (62,390 residents, $91,503 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Sioux City, IA (85,651 residents); Auburn, WA (85,455 residents); Melbourne, FL (85,718 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 can the FBI record say about safety in Franklin?
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 1074.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 53% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
The NCES join finds 25 public schools within the city match. 64.3% 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 46 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Franklin?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.0%, 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
$115,000
Home value
$646,300
Value / income
5.6×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Franklin 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 +6,067 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +7.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 945 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
+7.2%
2025 estimate
90,226
2020 estimate
84,159
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Franklin?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 63.6%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.1%
Work from home
28.2%
Drive alone
63.6%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 44,972 workers age 16+.
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.
Bachelor's+ share A+
64.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A-
$115,000
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate B+
3.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
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 C+
132 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Franklin profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 94/100 (A+) · 64.3%
Household income: 84/100 (A-) · $115,000
Poverty rate: 79/100 (B+) · 3.0%
Cost of living: 78/100 (B+) · 91.9 index
Violent crime: 63/100 (C+) · 132 /100k
Where Franklin sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Franklin'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 - Franklin highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Franklin, TN (this city): home $646,300, crime 1,075/100k
Sioux City, IA : home $162,600, crime 3,879/100k
Auburn, WA : home $510,400, crime 4,511/100k
San Ramon, CA : home $1,359,100, crime 1,200/100k
Medford, OR : home $387,000, crime 4,324/100k
Lake Forest, CA : home $876,300, crime 975/100k
Johnson City, TN : home $238,000, crime 2,705/100k
Jackson, TN : home $195,000, crime 4,111/100k
Hendersonville, TN : home $396,500, crime 837/100k
Bartlett, TN : home $283,700, crime 1,534/100k
Kingsport, TN : home $203,000, crime 3,401/100k
Smyrna, TN : home $326,700, crime 2,665/100k
How does Franklin compare to other US cities?
Here's how Franklin stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income85% higher than other cities
Home value91% pricier than other cities
Median rent34% pricier than other cities
Safety61% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Tennessee, Franklin ranks #58 of 174 Tennessee cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Franklin 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 Franklin near the bottom of Tennessee's cities
Among the 482 Tennessee cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Franklin ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Franklin only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#26 of 458
94th percentile in Tennessee
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 482
0th percentile in Tennessee
Median Home Value
#8 of 455
98th percentile in Tennessee
Poverty Rate
#391 of 482
19th percentile in Tennessee
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#14 of 482
97th 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
85th percentile nationally for median household income · 61st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Franklin's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Franklin'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 Franklin's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$646,3009th percentilemore affordable than 9% 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
Franklin's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,724 of 15,516
More affordable than 12% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#536 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 5.6×, Franklin sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,724 of 15,516 and #536 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$115,000Franklin, TN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Franklin, 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 Franklin, TN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)64.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
85,575
Median Income
$115,000
Median Home Value
$646,300
Median Age
37.8
Poverty Rate
3.0%
Labor force participation
67.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
64.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1074.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
132.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
942.5
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
25
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Franklin's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
84,159 residents
2021
85,974 residents
2022
87,590 residents
2023
88,666 residents
2024
88,921 residents
2025
90,226 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
945
housing units authorized
Single-Family
407
detached homes
Multifamily
538
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
11
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1,099
505
594
$289.3M
2020
923
408
515
$269.0M
2021
1,180
293
887
$285.7M
2022
839
288
551
$259.2M
2023
306
306
0
$85.3M
2024
945
407
538
$221.3M
Permit volume decreased 14% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
63.6%
Carpool
5.4%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
1.1%
Work from Home
28.2%
Other
1.6%
Based on 44,972 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 Franklin. 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 Franklin 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 Franklin sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Franklin 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, 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.