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Place dossier plate
SheetVA-FALLS-CHURCH-VA · Falls Church, VA 14,593 pop · income 95th 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 Falls Church
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Falls Church on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Red Bluff · lowest
50,216
Red Bluff · lowest
50,216 median HH income
20.1% of the leader · rank #1
Aptos Hills-L… · near
154,591
Aptos Hills-L… · near
154,591 median HH income
61.8% of the leader · rank #2
New Hampshire · near
154,643
New Hampshire · near
154,643 median HH income
61.9% of the leader · rank #3
Del Monte For… · near
154,730
Del Monte For… · near
154,730 median HH income
61.9% of the leader · rank #4
Falls Church · this city
154,734
Falls Church · this city
154,734 median HH income
61.9% of the leader · rank #5
Discovery Bay · near
154,792
Discovery Bay · near
154,792 median HH income
61.9% of the leader · rank #6
Great Falls · highest
250,001
Great Falls · 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 Falls Church 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: 14,593.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Falls Church - the verdict
Falls Church ranks in the 95th percentile for household income and the 42nd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
95th
percentile, household income
97th
percentile, home value
62nd
percentile, median rent
42nd
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: Falls Church, VA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 14,593 residents in Falls Church, a small town within Virginia. Households in Falls Church report a median income of $154,734 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.3%. Typical homes in Falls Church are valued around $1,005,400, and the median resident age is 39.4 years. 79.7% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 66.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 18 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 95% from five years earlier. Falls Church reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1621.5 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Virginia tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 101.1 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 $1,369 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Virginia run around $235, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Natural-hazard exposure scores 33.3 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Falls Church'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 housing and income to population change to work and mobility to reported crime to comparison shortlist to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Falls Church, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, matched public-school count, annual population history.
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
How far does income reach against housing in Falls Church?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 6.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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.
Is Falls Church growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +482 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +3.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 18 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What does the journey to work look like in Falls Church?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 51.6%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Which cities make useful reference points for Falls Church?
Within Virginia, the closest population matches are Broadlands (14,673 residents, $235,491 income); Great Falls (14,854 residents, $250,000+ income); Highland Springs (15,091 residents, $56,931 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Red Bluff, CA (14,592 residents); Great Bend, KS (14,596 residents); Swansea, IL (14,603 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.
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.
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 Falls Church?
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.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1621.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 29% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1520.2
Violent rate
101.3
Total reported rate
1621.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the education layer cover for Falls Church?
The NCES join finds 26 public schools within the city match. 79.7% 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.
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.
Matched public schools
26
Bachelor's degree+
79.7%
Poverty estimate
2.3%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Virginia average
B+
City profile score · Falls Church, VA
77/100
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 A+
79.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A+
$154,734
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate A-
2.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime B
101 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger 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.
Falls Church profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 100/100 (A+) · 79.7%
Household income: 98/100 (A+) · $154,734
Poverty rate: 84/100 (A-) · 2.3%
Violent crime: 70/100 (B) · 101 /100k
Cost of living: 35/100 (F) · 101.1 index
Where Falls Church sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Falls Church'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 - Falls Church highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Falls Church, VA (this city): home $1,005,400, crime 1,622/100k
Red Bluff, CA : home $271,100, crime 5,527/100k
Great Bend, KS : home $118,700, crime 1,872/100k
Swansea, IL : home $211,700, crime 785/100k
Fraser, MI : home $193,600, crime 2,181/100k
Alexandria, MN : home $247,200, crime 1,810/100k
Front Royal, VA : home $284,900, crime 1,868/100k
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 Falls Church compare to other US cities?
Here's how Falls Church stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income95% higher than other cities
Home value97% pricier than other cities
Median rent62% pricier than other cities
Safety42% 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, Falls Church ranks #50 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 Falls Church 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 Falls Church near the bottom of Virginia's cities
Among the 619 Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Falls Church ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Falls Church only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#64 of 558
89th percentile in Virginia
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 619
0th percentile in Virginia
Median Home Value
#10 of 567
98th percentile in Virginia
Poverty Rate
#416 of 616
31st percentile in Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#21 of 618
96th 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
95th percentile nationally for median household income · 42nd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Falls Church's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Falls Church'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 Falls Church's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,005,4003rd percentilemore affordable than 3% 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
Falls Church's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,437 of 15,516
More affordable than 7% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,046 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.5×, Falls Church sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,437 of 15,516 and #3,046 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$154,734Falls Church, VA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Falls Church, 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 Falls Church, VA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)79.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)66.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,593
Median Income
$154,734
Median Home Value
$1,005,400
Median Age
39.4
Poverty Rate
2.3%
Labor force participation
66.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
79.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1621.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
101.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1520.2
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
26
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Falls Church's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
14,677 residents
2021
14,517 residents
2022
14,520 residents
2023
14,808 residents
2024
15,046 residents
2025
15,159 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
18
housing units authorized
Single-Family
18
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
346
24
322
$134.0M
2020
14
14
0
$7.0M
2021
19
19
0
$11.0M
2022
872
12
860
$193.0M
2023
17
17
0
$11.3M
2024
18
18
0
$12.8M
Permit volume decreased 95% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
51.6%
Carpool
3.9%
Public Transit
9.5%
Walk
3.0%
Work from Home
30.5%
Other
1.5%
Based on 7,773 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 Falls Church. 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 Falls Church 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 Falls Church sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Falls Church 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, 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.