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Place dossier plate
SheetVA-ASHLAND-VA · Ashland, VA 7,667 pop · income 43rd 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 Ashland
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Ashland on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Farmville · lowest
40,282
Farmville · lowest
40,282 median HH income
16.9% of the leader · rank #1
Ashland · this city
65,000
Ashland · this city
65,000 median HH income
27.3% of the leader · rank #2
Athens · near
65,000
Athens · near
65,000 median HH income
27.3% of the leader · rank #3
Sweet Water · near
65,000
Sweet Water · near
65,000 median HH income
27.3% of the leader · rank #4
Graeagle · near
65,000
Graeagle · near
65,000 median HH income
27.3% of the leader · rank #5
Pensacola Sta… · near
65,000
Pensacola Sta… · near
65,000 median HH income
27.3% of the leader · rank #6
Bull Run CDP… · highest
238,500
Bull Run CDP… · highest
238,500 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 Ashland 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: 7,667.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Ashland - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Ashland places in the 43rd percentile for household income and the 19th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
43rd
percentile, household income
60th
percentile, home value
62nd
percentile, median rent
19th
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: Ashland, VA
7,667 people live in Ashland, Virginia - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $65,000 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 14.2%. Ashland's housing stock carries a median value of $272,600, and the median resident age is 30.7 years. About 34.9% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 56.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2695.2 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Ashland's yearly average temperature at 57.5°F with 45.3 inches of precipitation per year and 14.7 inches of snowfall.
Virginia tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Virginia at 101.1 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,369 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $235 across Virginia, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 out of 100 (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Ashland'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 schools and households to work and mobility to reported crime to population change to climate and hazard context to housing and income to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Ashland, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Ashland?
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 5 public schools within the city match. 34.9% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Ashland?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 74.6%. 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Ashland?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2695.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 18% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Ashland?
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 Virginia, the closest population matches are Collinsville (7,645 residents, $50,465 income); Farmville (7,613 residents, $40,282 income); Laurel Hill (7,551 residents, $139,803 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Seward, NE (7,665 residents); Ludington, MI (7,664 residents); Thousand Palms, CA (7,662 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 Ashland growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +375 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +4.9% 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
7,607
2025 estimate
7,982
Period change
+4.9%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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 57.5°F, with 45.3 inches of precipitation and 14.7 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Virginia is 33.3 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)
33.3
Annual precipitation
45.3 in
Mean temperature
57.5°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 Ashland?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 14.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.2×
Home value
$272,600
Household income
$65,000
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Below median income · poverty 14.2% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
101.1 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Virginia average
F
City profile score · Ashland, VA
34/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share B-
34.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income D
$65,000
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Cost of living F
101.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Poverty rate F
14.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
595 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Ashland profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 66/100 (B-) · 34.9%
Household income: 42/100 (D) · $65,000
Cost of living: 35/100 (F) · 101.1 index
Poverty rate: 24/100 (F) · 14.2%
Violent crime: 10/100 (F) · 595 /100k
Where Ashland sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Ashland'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 - Ashland highlighted among 25 peers.Read the chart values
Ashland, VA (this city): home $272,600, crime 2,695/100k
Seward, NE : home $232,500, crime 731/100k
Ludington, MI : home $192,800, crime 1,148/100k
New Albany, MS : home $150,000, crime 1,216/100k
Farmville, VA : home $223,700, crime 4,093/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Ashland compare to other US cities?
Here's how Ashland stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income43% higher than other cities
Home value60% pricier than other cities
Median rent62% pricier than other cities
Safety19% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Virginia and the picture shifts: Ashland ranks #86 of 117 Virginia cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Ashland against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Virginia only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Virginia-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Ashland near the bottom of Virginia's cities
Among the 619 Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Ashland ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Ashland only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#323 of 558
42nd percentile in Virginia
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 619
0th percentile in Virginia
Median Home Value
#260 of 567
54th percentile in Virginia
Poverty Rate
#134 of 616
78th percentile in Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#229 of 618
63rd percentile in Virginia
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 Virginia only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
43rd percentile nationally for median household income · 19th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Ashland's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Ashland'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 Ashland's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$272,60040th percentilemore affordable than 40% 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
Ashland's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#11,220 of 15,516
More affordable than 28% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#8,702 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 4.2×, Ashland sits in the moderate band:
national rank #11,220 of 15,516 and #8,702 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$65,000Ashland, VA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Ashland, VA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Ashland, VA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)34.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)14.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)56.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
7,667
Median Income
$65,000
Median Home Value
$272,600
Median Age
30.7
Poverty Rate
14.2%
Labor force participation
56.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
34.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2695.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
594.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2100.5
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
57.5°F
Annual Precipitation
45.3"
Annual Snowfall
14.7"
Schools
Total Schools
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Ashland's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
7,607 residents
2021
7,690 residents
2022
7,772 residents
2023
7,849 residents
2024
7,928 residents
2025
7,982 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
74.6%
Carpool
5.5%
Public Transit
0.3%
Walk
7.0%
Work from Home
10.6%
Other
2.0%
Based on 3,651 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Virginia statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $235
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Virginia at $235 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Virginia statewide averages, not a meter reading for Ashland. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Virginia's BEA cost-of-living index is 101.1 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Ashland is $1,369/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Virginia statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Virginia statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Ashland sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Ashland compares to similar-size Virginia 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.