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Place dossier plate
SheetVA-STAUNTON-VA · Staunton, VA 25,765 pop · income 39th pct · 7 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 Staunton
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Staunton on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Fort Hood · lowest
59,661
Fort Hood · lowest
59,661 median HH income
23.9% of the leader · rank #1
Fifty-Six · near
62,583
Fifty-Six · near
62,583 median HH income
25.0% of the leader · rank #2
Candor · near
62,583
Candor · near
62,583 median HH income
25.0% of the leader · rank #3
Frankfort · near
62,583
Frankfort · near
62,583 median HH income
25.0% of the leader · rank #4
Staunton · this city
62,586
Staunton · this city
62,586 median HH income
25.0% of the leader · rank #5
Falcon Lake E… · near
62,589
Falcon Lake E… · near
62,589 median HH income
25.0% of the leader · rank #6
Brambleton · highest
250,001
Brambleton · 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 Staunton 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: 25,765.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Staunton - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Staunton places in the 39th percentile for household income and the 41st percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
39th
percentile, household income
53rd
percentile, home value
62nd
percentile, median rent
41st
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: Staunton, VA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 25,765 residents in Staunton, a small city within Virginia. The typical household in Staunton brings in $62,586 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.3%. Home values in Staunton run a median of $239,300, and the median resident age is 41.0 years. 35.1% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 57.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 71 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 69% from five years earlier. Staunton reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1648.1 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. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,369 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $235 across Virginia, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Staunton report an average commute of 20.6 minutes, with 77.7% driving alone and 6.6% working from home. 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 Staunton'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 population change to housing and income to comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime to within-city variation to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Staunton, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, annual population history, local building permits, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Population change
Is Staunton 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 +991 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +3.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 71 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
How far does income reach against housing in Staunton?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.3%, 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. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Staunton?
Within Virginia, the closest population matches are Cave Spring (26,014 residents, $85,314 income); Salem (25,477 residents, $66,716 income); Bailey's Crossroads (25,458 residents, $84,241 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Rockville Centre, NY (25,770 residents); Sebastian, FL (25,759 residents); El Cerrito, CA (25,781 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.
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.
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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Staunton?
The NCES join finds 12 public schools within the city match. 35.1% 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.
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
12
Bachelor's degree+
35.1%
Poverty estimate
8.3%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Staunton?
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 1648.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 28% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1506.6
Violent rate
141.5
Total reported rate
1648.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Staunton?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 77.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 20.6 minutes.
Public transit
0.5%
Work from home
6.6%
Drive alone
77.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 11,903 workers age 16+.
Below median income · poverty 8.3% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
101.1 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Virginia average
D
City profile score · Staunton, VA
48/100
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-
35.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime C+
142 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate D
8.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$62,586
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.
Staunton profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 67/100 (B-) · 35.1%
Violent crime: 60/100 (C+) · 142 /100k
Poverty rate: 46/100 (D) · 8.3%
Household income: 38/100 (F) · $62,586
Cost of living: 35/100 (F) · 101.1 index
Where Staunton sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Staunton'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 - Staunton highlighted among 24 peers.Read the chart values
Staunton, VA (this city): home $239,300, crime 1,648/100k
Sebastian, FL : home $281,700, crime 1,053/100k
El Cerrito, CA : home $1,107,500, crime 3,524/100k
Herndon, VA : home $568,700, crime 2,035/100k
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 Staunton compare to other US cities?
Where Staunton sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income39% higher than other cities
Home value53% pricier than other cities
Median rent62% pricier than other cities
Safety41% 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: Staunton ranks #52 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 Staunton 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 Staunton near the bottom of Virginia's cities
Among the 619 Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Staunton ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Staunton only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#337 of 558
40th percentile in Virginia
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 619
0th percentile in Virginia
Median Home Value
#309 of 567
46th percentile in Virginia
Poverty Rate
#237 of 616
62nd percentile in Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#226 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
39th percentile nationally for median household income · 41st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Staunton's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Staunton'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 Staunton's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$239,30047th percentilemore affordable than 47% 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
Staunton's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,137 of 15,516
More affordable than 35% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,809 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.8×, Staunton sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,137 of 15,516 and #1,809 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$62,586Staunton, VA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Staunton, 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 Staunton, VA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)35.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
25,765
Median Income
$62,586
Median Home Value
$239,300
Median Age
41.0
Poverty Rate
8.3%
Labor force participation
57.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
35.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1648.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
141.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1506.6
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
12
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Staunton's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
25,810 residents
2021
25,707 residents
2022
25,924 residents
2023
25,855 residents
2024
26,260 residents
2025
26,801 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
71
housing units authorized
Single-Family
43
detached homes
Multifamily
28
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
42
38
4
$6.4M
2020
50
50
0
$7.7M
2021
63
43
20
$9.1M
2022
70
50
20
$15.5M
2023
245
61
184
$42.4M
2024
71
43
28
$13.9M
Permit volume increased 69% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
20.6 minutes
Drive Alone
77.7%
Carpool
8.8%
Public Transit
0.5%
Walk
4.8%
Work from Home
6.6%
Other
1.6%
Based on 11,903 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 Staunton. 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 Staunton 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 Staunton sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Staunton 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.