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Place dossier plate
SheetTX-PRINCETON-TX · Princeton, TX 20,966 pop · income 76th pct
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 Princeton
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Princeton on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Vicksburg · lowest
42,484
Vicksburg · lowest
42,484 median HH income
25.7% of the leader · rank #1
Aloha · near
96,754
Aloha · near
96,754 median HH income
58.6% of the leader · rank #2
Jefferson · near
96,761
Jefferson · near
96,761 median HH income
58.6% of the leader · rank #3
Piru · near
96,765
Piru · near
96,765 median HH income
58.6% of the leader · rank #4
Princeton · this city
96,766
Princeton · this city
96,766 median HH income
58.6% of the leader · rank #5
Smyrna · near
96,780
Smyrna · near
96,780 median HH income
58.6% of the leader · rank #6
Murphy · highest
165,109
Murphy · highest
165,109 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 Princeton 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: 20,966.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Princeton - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Princeton places in the 76th percentile for household income and the 59th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
76th
percentile, household income
67th
percentile, home value
40th
percentile, median rent
59th
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: Princeton, TX
Princeton is a small city in Texas, home to 20,966 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Princeton brings in $96,766 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 3.7%. Typical homes in Princeton are valued around $310,700, and the median resident age is 32.9 years. 28.3% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 73.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 2,278 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 250% from five years earlier. Princeton reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1118.2 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Texas tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Texas at 97.1 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,149 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Texas's average monthly utility costs around $223 (state average). The average commute for Princeton workers runs 29.0 minutes, with 70.1% driving alone and 12.1% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 49.0 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Princeton'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 comparison shortlist to work and mobility to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Princeton, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Is Princeton growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +26,023 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +148.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 2,278 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Princeton?
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 Anna (20,975 residents, $99,375 income); Brushy Creek (20,953 residents, $137,630 income); Murphy (21,001 residents, $165,109 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Covington, WA (20,957 residents); Fort Walton Beach, FL (20,956 residents); Dolton, IL (20,979 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Princeton?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.1%. The reported mean trip to work is 29.0 minutes.
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.
What does the education layer cover for Princeton?
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 12 public schools within the city match. 28.3% 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.
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 Princeton?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1118.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 51% 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.
Total reported rate
1118.2
Violent rate
273.9
Property rate
844.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Princeton?
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 3.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.7%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.2×
Home value
$310,700
Household income
$96,766
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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.
Household income B+
$96,766
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate B
3.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share C
28.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
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.
Violent crime F
274 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Princeton profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 75/100 (B+) · $96,766
Poverty rate: 74/100 (B) · 3.7%
Bachelor's+ share: 55/100 (C) · 28.3%
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Violent crime: 37/100 (F) · 274 /100k
Where Princeton sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Princeton'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 - Princeton highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Princeton, TX (this city): home $310,700, crime 1,118/100k
Covington, WA : home $590,100, crime 3,285/100k
Vicksburg, MS : home $117,000, crime 4,428/100k
Imperial, CA : home $344,700, crime 259/100k
Anna, TX : home $312,700, crime 870/100k
Murphy, TX : home $508,500, crime 518/100k
Fate, TX : home $361,100, crime 542/100k
Stephenville, TX : home $226,300, crime 1,341/100k
Ennis, TX : home $225,900, crime 1,701/100k
How does Princeton compare to other US cities?
Here's how Princeton stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income76% higher than other cities
Home value67% pricier than other cities
Median rent40% pricier than other cities
Safety59% 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 Texas, Princeton ranks #260 of 624 Texas 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 Princeton 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 Princeton near the bottom of Texas's cities
Among the 1,663 Texas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Princeton ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Princeton only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#264 of 1,520
83rd percentile in Texas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,663
0th percentile in Texas
Median Home Value
#248 of 1,505
83rd percentile in Texas
Poverty Rate
#1,221 of 1,663
26th percentile in Texas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#424 of 1,663
74th 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
76th percentile nationally for median household income · 59th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Princeton's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Princeton'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 Princeton's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$310,70033rd percentilemore affordable than 33% 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
Princeton's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,749 of 15,516
More affordable than 50% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,189 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.2×, Princeton sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,749 of 15,516 and #1,189 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$96,766Princeton, TX median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Princeton, 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 Princeton, TX.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)28.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)73.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
20,966
Median Income
$96,766
Median Home Value
$310,700
Median Age
32.9
Poverty Rate
3.7%
Labor force participation
73.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
28.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1118.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
273.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
844.3
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.
Schools
Total Schools
12
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Princeton's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,501 residents
2021
20,071 residents
2022
22,962 residents
2023
28,234 residents
2024
36,856 residents
2025
43,524 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
2,278
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1,948
detached homes
Multifamily
330
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
108.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
650
650
0
$154.3M
2020
823
823
0
$195.2M
2021
916
916
0
$217.3M
2022
1,784
1,040
744
$378.3M
2023
2,882
2,622
260
$784.4M
2024
2,278
1,948
330
$606.7M
Permit volume increased 250% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
29.0 minutes
Drive Alone
70.1%
Carpool
15.2%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.8%
Work from Home
12.1%
Other
0.8%
Based on 11,011 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 Princeton. 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 Princeton 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 Princeton sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Princeton 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, 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.