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Place dossier plate
SheetVA-SHENANDOAH-VA · Shenandoah, VA 3,131 pop · income 48th 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 Shenandoah
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Shenandoah on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Mount Morris · lowest
42,886
Mount Morris · lowest
42,886 median HH income
17.2% of the leader · rank #1
Shenandoah · this city
68,594
Shenandoah · this city
68,594 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #2
Creola · near
68,594
Creola · near
68,594 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #3
West Lebanon · near
68,594
West Lebanon · near
68,594 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #4
Cody · near
68,594
Cody · near
68,594 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #5
Zuehl · near
68,594
Zuehl · near
68,594 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #6
One Loudoun · highest
250,001
One Loudoun · 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 Shenandoah 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: 3,131.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Shenandoah - the verdict
Shenandoah ranks in the 48th percentile for household income and the 91st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
48th
percentile, household income
39th
percentile, home value
62nd
percentile, median rent
91st
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: Shenandoah, VA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 3,131 residents in Shenandoah, a small town within Virginia. Households in Shenandoah report a median income of $68,594 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 9.7%. Shenandoah's housing stock carries a median value of $187,300, and the median resident age is 35.9 years. 6.8% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 58.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Shenandoah reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 363.0 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than 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. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,369 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Virginia run around $235, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. 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 Shenandoah'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 reported crime to population change to schools and households to housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Shenandoah, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates.
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.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Shenandoah?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 363.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 84% 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.
Is Shenandoah growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +2 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.1% 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.
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
What does the education layer cover for Shenandoah?
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 3 public schools within the city match. 6.8% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Shenandoah?
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 Lebanon (3,133 residents, $57,578 income); One Loudoun (3,126 residents, $250,000+ income); Blue Ridge (3,112 residents, $83,113 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are West Fork, AR (3,131 residents); Mount Morris, MI (3,130 residents); Chenango Bridge, NY (3,132 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 Shenandoah?
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 9.7%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.7×
Home value
$187,300
Household income
$68,594
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Shenandoah?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 80.5%. 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
80.5%
Work from home
3.5%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,282 workers age 16+.
Below median income · poverty 9.7% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
101.1 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Virginia average
D
City profile score · Shenandoah, VA
40/100
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.
Violent crime B-
121 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income D
$68,594
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate D
9.7%
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
6.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Shenandoah profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 66/100 (B-) · 121 /100k
Household income: 47/100 (D) · $68,594
Poverty rate: 41/100 (D) · 9.7%
Cost of living: 35/100 (F) · 101.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 0/100 (F) · 6.8%
Where Shenandoah sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Shenandoah'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 - Shenandoah highlighted among 24 peers.Read the chart values
Shenandoah, VA (this city): home $187,300, crime 363/100k
West Fork, AR : home $182,800, crime 804/100k
Mount Morris, MI : home $79,500, crime 4,301/100k
Lebanon, VA : home $161,900, crime 3,229/100k
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 Shenandoah compare to other US cities?
Where Shenandoah sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income48% higher than other cities
Home value39% pricier than other cities
Median rent62% pricier than other cities
Safety91% 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: Shenandoah ranks #4 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 Shenandoah 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 Shenandoah near the bottom of Virginia's cities
Among the 619 Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Shenandoah ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Shenandoah only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#306 of 558
45th percentile in Virginia
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 619
0th percentile in Virginia
Median Home Value
#376 of 567
34th percentile in Virginia
Poverty Rate
#194 of 616
68th percentile in Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#560 of 618
9th 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
48th percentile nationally for median household income · 91st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Shenandoah's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Shenandoah'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 Shenandoah's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$187,300Among the most affordablemore affordable than 61% 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
Shenandoah's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,198 of 15,516
More affordable than 66% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#4,539 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.7×, Shenandoah sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,198 of 15,516 and #4,539 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
$68,594Shenandoah, VA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Shenandoah, 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 Shenandoah, VA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)6.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
3,131
Median Income
$68,594
Median Home Value
$187,300
Median Age
35.9
Poverty Rate
9.7%
Labor force participation
58.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
6.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
363.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
121.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
242.0
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
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Shenandoah's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
2,478 residents
2021
2,491 residents
2022
2,480 residents
2023
2,473 residents
2024
2,472 residents
2025
2,480 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
80.5%
Carpool
14.4%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
3.5%
Based on 1,282 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 Shenandoah. 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 Shenandoah 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 Shenandoah sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Shenandoah 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.