Original research
Highest-Rent Cities in America
PlainCities ranks large US cities by median gross rent from U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data, rendered server-side from a live query against the cities table.
Research question
Among large US cities (population 50,000 or more), which carry the highest median gross rent, and how wide is the gap between the most and least expensive rental markets once you exclude the smallest places where Census estimates are noisiest?
Methodology
We queried the PlainCities cities table at server render time, selecting the name, state, median gross rent, population and median household income columns for every place with a population of at least 50,000 and a non-null rent value. The query orders records by median rent in descending order and returns the top ten. Every figure on this page is read live from that query — none is hardcoded — so the ranking updates automatically whenever the underlying Census release is reingested.
Median gross rent comes from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Table B25064. Gross rent combines the contract rent a tenant pays with the estimated monthly cost of utilities and fuels, which makes it a fuller measure of housing cost than contract rent alone. Because it is a 5-year estimate, the figure represents a rolling average rather than a single month; it is more stable than a spot-market quote but lags rapid swings in a hot rental market by a year or two.
We apply a 50,000-resident population floor for this ranking. Small places can post extreme rent figures that rest on a handful of surveyed units, and the Census margin of error widens sharply at low sample sizes. Restricting the field to mid-size and large cities keeps the ranking on solid statistical ground and makes the comparison between markets meaningful. A separate aggregate query, run against the same filtered population, returns the count of qualifying cities and the average rent across all of them so the top ten can be read against the wider field.
To give the headline ranking context, a companion query returns the ten lowest-rent large cities from the same column and the same population floor. Pairing the most expensive markets with the most affordable ones shows the full spread of large-city rents in a single view, and both cuts draw from one source and one definition, so the comparison is apples to apples. The two charts below visualize these cuts; the table lists the headline ranking row by row, each city linking to its full profile.
Every number traces back to a single source row. A practitioner can copy the SQL from this page's frontmatter, point it at a local mirror of the PlainCities database, and reproduce the exact ranking. See the methodology page for the full ETL pipeline, the Census vintage, and column lineage.
Highest median gross rent — large US cities
Live data — rendered from a query against the portal database at request time
The ranked top 10
Each row is rendered from the live result set returned by the query above. Refresh after an ETL run to see the latest values.
| # | City | State | Median gross rent | Median income | Population |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Urban Honolulu | HI | $2,433 | $85,428 | 346,323 |
| 2 | East Honolulu | HI | $2,433 | $158,398 | 50,961 |
| 3 | Boston | MA | $2,261 | $94,755 | 663,972 |
| 4 | Worcester | MA | $2,261 | $67,544 | 205,501 |
| 5 | Springfield | MA | $2,261 | $51,339 | 154,751 |
| 6 | Cambridge | MA | $2,261 | $126,469 | 117,794 |
| 7 | Lowell | MA | $2,261 | $76,205 | 114,799 |
| 8 | Brockton | MA | $2,261 | $77,089 | 105,080 |
| 9 | Quincy | MA | $2,261 | $95,711 | 101,361 |
| 10 | Lynn | MA | $2,261 | $74,715 | 100,905 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey, Table B25064 (Median Gross Rent). Values are queried live from the PlainCities SQLite snapshot at request time. U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey, Table B25064 (Median Gross Rent). Values are queried live from the PlainCities SQLite snapshot at request time.
Findings
The most expensive large-city rental market
The highest median gross rent among large US cities belongs to Urban Honolulu, HI, at $2,433 per month. That figure includes the estimated cost of utilities, not just contract rent, so it reflects the full monthly housing bill a typical renter faces. The cities clustered near the top of this ranking are overwhelmingly coastal and tech-driven, where land constraints and high local incomes push rents well above the national picture.
How wide the spread runs
Within the top ten alone, the most expensive market charges about 1.1× the rent of the tenth-ranked city — and the gap against the most affordable large cities is far wider still. Across all 869 large cities in the dataset, median gross rent averages $1,488, with the most affordable large markets renting for roughly $924. The same dollar covers a very different home depending on the city, which is why rent is best read alongside local income rather than on its own.
Reading rent against income
A high rent in a high-income city can be more manageable than a moderate rent in a low-wage one. Each city in the table links to its full profile, where median gross rent sits next to median household income, home value and poverty rate — the context you need to judge whether a market is genuinely expensive for the people who live there. The affordability finder tool lets you flip the question around and filter cities to a rent ceiling that fits your budget.
Why gross rent, not contract rent
It is worth being precise about what this figure measures. Contract rent is the amount written into the lease; gross rent adds the Census Bureau's estimate of what the tenant pays for electricity, gas, water, and other fuels on top of that. The gross measure is the better yardstick for comparing one city to another, because the share of utilities bundled into rent varies widely — a building where heat is included looks cheaper on contract rent than an identical building where the tenant pays the utility company directly, even when the true cost of living there is the same. Using gross rent removes that distortion and puts every city on the same footing.
Where the expensive markets cluster
The geography of high rent is not random. The cities at the top of this ranking concentrate on the coasts and around major technology and finance employers, where land is scarce, construction is constrained, and local wages are high enough to sustain the prices. That clustering is exactly why a national average can mislead: a renter weighing a move is rarely choosing between a typical city and an expensive one, but between two specific markets whose rents may differ by more than the national spread suggests. Comparing the two cities directly, side by side, is far more useful than measuring either against the country as a whole.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Median gross rent reflects contract rent plus the estimated average monthly cost of utilities and fuels, as published by the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (Table B25064). It is a median across all renter-occupied units in a place, so it blends studios and four-bedroom houses, rent-controlled and market-rate units, and new and long-tenured leases. A high median does not mean every rental is expensive, nor does a low median guarantee availability. The 5-year aggregation smooths volatility but lags fast-moving markets by up to two years. A 50,000-resident population floor excludes small places where rent estimates carry the widest margins of error. Rent is not adjusted for unit size, quality, or local income; comparing rent to the median household income on each city profile gives a better sense of affordability than rent alone.
The other end of the scale: most affordable large cities
Lowest median gross rent among cities with 50,000+ residents
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau — ACS Table B25064 (Median Gross Rent) — census.gov/programs-surveys/acs