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Place dossier plate
SheetTX-BAYTOWN-TX · Baytown, TX 84,538 pop · income 38th pct · 8 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 Baytown
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Baytown on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Pharr · lowest
49,884
Pharr · lowest
49,884 median HH income
31.5% of the leader · rank #1
English Creek · near
61,694
English Creek · near
61,694 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #2
Oolitic · near
61,696
Oolitic · near
61,696 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #3
Baytown · this city
61,699
Baytown · this city
61,699 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #4
Jean Lafitte · near
61,703
Jean Lafitte · near
61,703 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #5
Cheyenne Wells · near
61,705
Cheyenne Wells · near
61,705 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #6
Newport Beach · highest
158,461
Newport Beach · highest
158,461 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 Baytown 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: 84,538.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Baytown - the verdict
Baytown ranks in the 38th percentile for household income and the 13th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
38th
percentile, household income
39th
percentile, home value
40th
percentile, median rent
13th
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: Baytown, TX
Baytown is a small city in Texas, home to 84,538 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $61,699 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 15.1%. Baytown's housing stock carries a median value of $187,900, and the median resident age is 33.9 years. About 15.0% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 58.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 489 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 57% from five years earlier. Baytown's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3241.3 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Baytown's yearly average temperature at 68.7°F with 64.7 inches of precipitation per year.
Texas tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Texas scores 97.1 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,149 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Texas run around $223, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.0 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Baytown'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 population change to within-city variation to schools and households to reported crime to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context to housing and income to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Baytown, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, annual population history, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
Is Baytown growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,175 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 489 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 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.
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.
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 30 public schools within the city match. 15.0% 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 Baytown?
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 Texas, the closest population matches are Bryan (86,169 residents, $56,861 income); Mission (86,234 residents, $60,813 income); Longview (82,765 residents, $62,488 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Kennewick, WA (84,389 residents); Brooklyn Park, MN (84,349 residents); Newport Beach, CA (84,304 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.
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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Baytown?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3241.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 42% higher 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
3241.3
Violent rate
440.0
Property rate
2801.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 68.7°F, with 64.7 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Texas is 49.0 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)
49.0
Annual precipitation
64.7 in
Mean temperature
68.7°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
How far does income reach against housing in Baytown?
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 3.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.0×
Home value
$187,900
Household income
$61,699
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 Baytown?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 81.9%. 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. 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.
Drive alone
81.9%
Work from home
4.9%
Public transit
0.6%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 36,629 workers age 16+.
Below median income · poverty 15.1% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Texas average
F
City profile score · Baytown, TX
31/100
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 C-
97.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Household income F
$61,699
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
15.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
440 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Baytown profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Household income: 37/100 (F) · $61,699
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.1%
Bachelor's+ share: 20/100 (F) · 15.0%
Violent crime: 20/100 (F) · 440 /100k
Where Baytown sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Baytown'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 - Baytown highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Baytown, TX (this city): home $187,900, crime 3,241/100k
Kennewick, WA : home $343,600, crime 3,828/100k
Brooklyn Park, MN : home $313,500, crime 2,770/100k
Newport Beach, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 2,124/100k
Westland, MI : home $176,500, crime 1,805/100k
Auburn, WA : home $510,400, crime 4,511/100k
Franklin, TN : home $646,300, crime 1,075/100k
Bryan, TX : home $210,600, crime 1,833/100k
Mission, TX : home $160,800, crime 1,338/100k
Longview, TX : home $182,700, crime 2,690/100k
Temple, TX : home $220,300, crime 2,679/100k
Pharr, TX : home $111,500, crime 1,359/100k
Georgetown, TX : home $398,600, crime 1,361/100k
How does Baytown compare to other US cities?
Here's how Baytown stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income38% higher than other cities
Home value39% pricier than other cities
Median rent40% pricier than other cities
Safety13% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Texas and the picture shifts: Baytown ranks #573 of 624 Texas cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Baytown against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Texas only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Texas-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Baytown near the bottom of Texas's cities
Among the 1,663 Texas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Baytown ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Baytown only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#804 of 1,520
47th percentile in Texas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,663
0th percentile in Texas
Median Home Value
#604 of 1,505
60th percentile in Texas
Poverty Rate
#496 of 1,663
70th percentile in Texas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#958 of 1,663
42nd percentile in Texas
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 Texas only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
38th percentile nationally for median household income · 13th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Baytown's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Baytown'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 Baytown's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$187,900Among the most affordablemore affordable than 61% 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
Baytown's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#6,921 of 15,516
More affordable than 55% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#123 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 3.0×, Baytown sits in the moderate band:
national rank #6,921 of 15,516 and #123 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
$61,699Baytown, TX median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Baytown, TX median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Baytown, TX.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)15.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
84,538
Median Income
$61,699
Median Home Value
$187,900
Median Age
33.9
Poverty Rate
15.1%
Labor force participation
58.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
15.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3241.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
440.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2801.3
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
68.7°F
Annual Precipitation
64.7"
Annual Snowfall
0.0"
Schools
Total Schools
30
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Baytown's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
85,386 residents
2021
84,386 residents
2022
84,925 residents
2023
85,199 residents
2024
85,824 residents
2025
86,561 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
489
housing units authorized
Single-Family
142
detached homes
Multifamily
347
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
5.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
312
310
2
$53.9M
2020
283
283
0
$66.4M
2021
309
309
0
$73.5M
2022
154
154
0
$35.9M
2023
140
140
0
$38.9M
2024
489
142
347
$76.6M
Permit volume increased 57% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
81.9%
Carpool
9.6%
Public Transit
0.6%
Walk
0.9%
Work from Home
4.9%
Other
2.1%
Based on 36,629 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Texas statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $223
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Texas at $223 (electricity about $130 , water and sewer about $48 ).
These are Texas statewide averages, not a meter reading for Baytown. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Texas's BEA cost-of-living index is 97.1 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Baytown is $1,149/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Texas statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.0 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Texas statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Baytown sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Baytown compares to similar-size Texas 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.