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Place dossier plate
SheetTX-RIO-GRANDE-CITY-TX · Rio Grande City, TX 15,258 pop · income 9th pct · 17 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 Rio Grande City
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Rio Grande City on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Brunswick · lowest
34,021
Brunswick · lowest
34,021 median HH income
13.6% of the leader · rank #1
Altheimer · near
41,364
Altheimer · near
41,364 median HH income
16.5% of the leader · rank #2
Combee Settle… · near
41,366
Combee Settle… · near
41,366 median HH income
16.5% of the leader · rank #3
Campbell · near
41,368
Campbell · near
41,368 median HH income
16.5% of the leader · rank #4
Rio Grande Ci… · this city
41,369
Rio Grande Ci… · this city
41,369 median HH income
16.5% of the leader · rank #5
Norway · near
41,370
Norway · near
41,370 median HH income
16.5% of the leader · rank #6
West Universi… · highest
250,001
West Universi… · highest
250,001 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 Rio Grande City 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: 15,258.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Rio Grande City - the verdict
Rio Grande City ranks in the 9th percentile for household income and the 34th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
9th
percentile, household income
15th
percentile, home value
40th
percentile, median rent
34th
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: Rio Grande City, TX
Rio Grande City is a small town in Texas, home to 15,258 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Rio Grande City report a median income of $41,369 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 30.5%. Rio Grande City's housing stock carries a median value of $113,400, and the median resident age is 28.5 years. About 18.1% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 53.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1925.6 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Rio Grande City's yearly average temperature at 74.4°F with 22.5 inches of precipitation per year and 0.1 inches of snowfall.
Texas tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 97.1 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,149 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Texas run around $223, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in Rio Grande City report an average commute of 17.9 minutes, with 78.2% driving alone and 7.0% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 49.0 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Rio Grande City'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 climate and hazard context to reported crime to within-city variation to population change to schools and households to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Rio Grande City, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Rio Grande City?
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 74.4°F, with 22.5 inches of precipitation and 0.1 inches of annual snowfall. 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Rio Grande City?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1925.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 16% 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.
What can 17 Census tracts reveal inside Rio Grande City?
PlainCities matches 17 Census tracts to this city.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Rio Grande City?
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 Uvalde (15,344 residents, $50,967 income); Mineral Wells (15,130 residents, $54,210 income); Canyon (15,398 residents, $68,233 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Brookside, DE (15,262 residents); Hendersonville, NC (15,253 residents); Tenafly, NJ (15,252 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.
Population change
Is Rio Grande City growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +161 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.1% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. 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.
2020 estimate
15,290
2025 estimate
15,451
Period change
+1.1%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the education layer cover for Rio Grande City?
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 16 public schools within the city match. 18.1% 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.
Poverty estimate
30.5%
Bachelor's degree+
18.1%
Matched public schools
16
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Rio Grande City?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 78.2%. The reported mean trip to work is 17.9 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.
Drive alone
78.2%
Work from home
7.0%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 5,478 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Rio Grande City?
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 2.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 30.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.7×
Home value
$113,400
Household income
$41,369
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 30.5% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Texas average
F
City profile score · Rio Grande City, TX
27/100
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.
Violent crime D
189 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
18.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$41,369
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
30.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Rio Grande City profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Violent crime: 49/100 (D) · 189 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 29/100 (F) · 18.1%
Household income: 9/100 (F) · $41,369
Poverty rate: 0/100 (F) · 30.5%
Where Rio Grande City sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Rio Grande City'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 - Rio Grande City highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Rio Grande City, TX (this city): home $113,400, crime 1,926/100k
Hendersonville, NC : home $282,500, crime 3,322/100k
Tenafly, NJ : home $974,300, crime 473/100k
Phillipsburg, NJ : home $180,700, crime 1,933/100k
Uvalde, TX : home $131,600, crime 2,231/100k
Mineral Wells, TX : home $146,100, crime 3,019/100k
Canyon, TX : home $218,300, crime 729/100k
Buda, TX : home $410,100, crime 1,768/100k
West University Place, TX : home $1,406,600, crime 1,046/100k
How does Rio Grande City compare to other US cities?
Rio Grande City measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income9% higher than other cities
Home value15% pricier than other cities
Median rent40% pricier than other cities
Safety34% 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 Texas alone, Rio Grande City ranks #439 of 624 Texas 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 Rio Grande City 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 Rio Grande City near the bottom of Texas's cities
Among the 1,663 Texas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Rio Grande City ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Rio Grande City only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,342 of 1,520
12th percentile in Texas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,663
0th percentile in Texas
Median Home Value
#1,024 of 1,505
32nd percentile in Texas
Poverty Rate
#124 of 1,663
93rd percentile in Texas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#762 of 1,663
54th 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
9th percentile nationally for median household income · 34th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Rio Grande City's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Rio Grande City'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 Rio Grande City's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$113,400Among the most affordablemore affordable than 85% 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
Rio Grande City's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,258 of 15,516
More affordable than 66% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#594 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.7×, Rio Grande City sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,258 of 15,516 and #594 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$41,369Rio Grande City, TX median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Rio Grande City, 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 Rio Grande City, TX.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)18.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)30.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)53.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
15,258
Median Income
$41,369
Median Home Value
$113,400
Median Age
28.5
Poverty Rate
30.5%
Labor force participation
53.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
18.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1925.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
189.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1736.3
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
74.4°F
Annual Precipitation
22.5"
Annual Snowfall
0.1"
Schools
Total Schools
16
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Rio Grande City's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
15,290 residents
2021
15,303 residents
2022
15,289 residents
2023
15,384 residents
2024
15,467 residents
2025
15,451 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
17.9 minutes
Drive Alone
78.2%
Carpool
12.7%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
7.0%
Other
0.8%
Based on 5,478 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 Rio Grande City. 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 Rio Grande City 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 Rio Grande City sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Rio Grande City 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.