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Place dossier plate
SheetVA-EMPORIA-VA · Emporia, VA 5,633 pop · income 19th pct · 2 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 Emporia
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Emporia on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Marion · lowest
37,357
Marion · lowest
37,357 median HH income
15.1% of the leader · rank #1
Emporia · this city
49,375
Emporia · this city
49,375 median HH income
19.9% of the leader · rank #2
Eek · near
49,375
Eek · near
49,375 median HH income
19.9% of the leader · rank #3
Hydaburg · near
49,375
Hydaburg · near
49,375 median HH income
19.9% of the leader · rank #4
Magazine · near
49,375
Magazine · near
49,375 median HH income
19.9% of the leader · rank #5
Sidney · near
49,375
Sidney · near
49,375 median HH income
19.9% of the leader · rank #6
Crosspointe · highest
247,708
Crosspointe · highest
247,708 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 Emporia 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: 5,633.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Emporia - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Emporia lands in the 19th percentile for household income and the 8th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
19th
percentile, household income
21st
percentile, home value
62nd
percentile, median rent
8th
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: Emporia, VA
Virginia's Emporia is a small town, with 5,633 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $49,375 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 9.0%. Emporia's housing stock carries a median value of $131,100, and the median resident age is 39.5 years. Educational attainment runs 15.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 50.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 1 residential building permits were authorized in Emporia (Construction Slowdown), down 75% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Emporia's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3962.4 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 59.7°F with 46.2 inches of precipitation per year and 1.4 inches of snowfall.
Virginia tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Virginia scores 101.1 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. 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. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 33.3 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Emporia'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 within-city variation to population change to climate and hazard context to housing and income to comparison shortlist to reported crime to schools and households to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Emporia, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, local building permits, matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can 2 Census tracts reveal inside Emporia?
PlainCities matches 2 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.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -250 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -4.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1 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 downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
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 59.7°F, with 46.2 inches of precipitation and 1.4 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Emporia?
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 Crosspointe (5,632 residents, $247,708 income); Moorefield (5,598 residents, $200,754 income); Covington (5,671 residents, $42,724 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are West Modesto, CA (5,633 residents); North Windham, ME (5,633 residents); Waimanalo, HI (5,634 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Emporia?
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 9.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.7×
Home value
$131,100
Household income
$49,375
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Emporia?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3962.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 74% 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
3962.4
Violent rate
1068.9
Property rate
2893.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 4 public schools within the city match. 15.2% 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
9.0%
Bachelor's degree+
15.2%
Matched public schools
4
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Emporia?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 79.3%. 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
79.3%
Work from home
6.0%
Public transit
0.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 2,164 workers age 16+.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Virginia average
F
City profile score · Emporia, VA
24/100
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.
Poverty rate D
9.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
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.
Bachelor's+ share F
15.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$49,375
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
1,069 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Emporia profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 44/100 (D) · 9.0%
Cost of living: 35/100 (F) · 101.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 21/100 (F) · 15.2%
Household income: 19/100 (F) · $49,375
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,069 /100k
Where Emporia sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Emporia'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 - Emporia highlighted among 25 peers.Read the chart values
Emporia, VA (this city): home $131,100, crime 3,962/100k
Henryetta, OK : home $86,100, crime 1,499/100k
Covington, VA : home $80,200, crime 1,467/100k
Marion, VA : home $160,600, crime 2,618/100k
Dumfries, VA : home $303,700, crime 1,236/100k
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 Emporia compare to other US cities?
Where Emporia sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income19% higher than other cities
Home value21% pricier than other cities
Median rent62% pricier than other cities
Safety8% 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 Virginia, Emporia ranks #111 of 117 Virginia 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 Emporia 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 Emporia near the bottom of Virginia's cities
Among the 619 Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Emporia ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Emporia only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#441 of 558
21st percentile in Virginia
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 619
0th percentile in Virginia
Median Home Value
#475 of 567
16th percentile in Virginia
Poverty Rate
#213 of 616
65th percentile in Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#469 of 618
24th 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
19th percentile nationally for median household income · 8th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Emporia's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Emporia'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 Emporia's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$131,100Among the most affordablemore affordable than 79% 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
Emporia's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,794 of 15,516
More affordable than 69% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#4,230 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.7×, Emporia sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,794 of 15,516 and #4,230 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$49,375Emporia, VA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Emporia, 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 Emporia, VA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)15.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
5,633
Median Income
$49,375
Median Home Value
$131,100
Median Age
39.5
Poverty Rate
9.0%
Labor force participation
50.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
15.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3962.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1068.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2893.5
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
59.7°F
Annual Precipitation
46.2"
Annual Snowfall
1.4"
Schools
Total Schools
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Emporia's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
5,697 residents
2021
5,630 residents
2022
5,524 residents
2023
5,481 residents
2024
5,410 residents
2025
5,447 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
1
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
4
2
2
$0.2M
2020
2
2
0
$0.3M
2021
6
6
0
$0.9M
2022
3
3
0
$0.5M
2023
5
5
0
$0.8M
2024
1
1
0
$0.1M
Permit volume decreased 75% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
79.3%
Carpool
10.5%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
2.8%
Work from Home
6.0%
Other
1.2%
Based on 2,164 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 Emporia. 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 Emporia 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 Emporia sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Emporia 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 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.