Interactive tools

City Tools

Name: US City Tool Source Profiles
Creator: PlainCities
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Free, interactive tools built on the same federal data behind all 28,702 city profiles. Compare up to four places, check local housing costs against a consistent benchmark, rank a city among relevant peers, or filter the national set by a real rent and home-price budget.

Compiled by PlainCities · August 8, 2026

28,702
Cities: 4
Tools: Live
Federal data

The headline finding

Fort Worth, TX issued the most residential building permits of any tracked city in 2024 (13,148 units), but that is a size story: among 759 cities with population 50,000 or more, Kyle, TX leads intensity at 33.7 permits per 1,000 residents.

Fort Worth, TX
13,148 permits (2024), most of any city: Kyle, TX
33.7 permits per 1,000 residents, highest among pop. 50,000+: 1,072,271
national peak, 2021

Read live from the U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey. Volume rank is total units permitted; intensity rank is units per 1,000 residents among cities with population 50,000 or more.

Ranker

How does my city rank?

Enter your city to see its state rank, size-class rank, and four auto-selected peer cities for income, rent, home value, poverty, or education.

Open tool → Compare

Compare cities side by side

Line up to four cities on population, income, housing, safety and climate.

Open tool → Lookup

Cost-of-living lookup

Type a city to see rent, home value and income vs the typical US city.

Open tool → Finder

Affordable-city finder

Filter by state and budget to find cities that fit your rent or home price.

Open tool →

What a lookup returns

Descending coverage of independently verifiable layers on the 28,702 cities these tools search. ACS housing and income cover most of the registry; crime, PEP history, and climate cover a measured share (deepest listed layer 13%). Counts are live SQL from the serving database, not hand-typed.

City profile

100
Population

100
Poverty rate (ACS)

99.8
Median rent (ACS)

99
Bachelor share (ACS)

99
Median income (ACS)

94.1
Median home value (ACS)

94
PEP history 2020-2025

63.1
School count (NCES)

52.6
Building permits 2024

44.4
Crime rate (FBI UCR)

26.2
Climate normals (NOAA)

13

What this shows City profiles and population are complete at 28,702. Median home value covers 26,971; crime rates 7,520; PEP history 18,101; climate normals 3,717. Gaps stay empty.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau · FBI UCR · NOAA · NCES ACS 5-Year, PEP, Building Permits Survey · 2026-08-08 Coverage percentages are COUNT / city-population from the serving database. Completeness only, not metric quality.

Fort Worth, TX

13,148
Houston, TX

11,898
Los Angeles, CA

10,488
Austin, TX

9,444
Phoenix, AZ

8,997
Atlanta, GA

8,109
Nashville-Davidson, TN

6,799
San Diego, CA

6,615
Jacksonville, FL

6,398
San Antonio, TX

6,258
Columbus, OH

6,084
Dallas, TX

6,038
Miami, FL

6,023
Seattle, WA

5,895
Raleigh, NC

5,044
Oklahoma City, OK

4,398
Chicago, IL

4,371
Omaha, NE

4,360
Celina, TX

4,357
Denver, CO

3,994

What this shows Fort Worth, Texas issued the most residential building permits of any US city in 2024. The table below ranks the same cities by permits per 1,000 residents so a large city is not mistaken for the most intense building market.

Volume is not intensity

Ranked by 2024 permit count. Intensity rank is permits per 1,000 residents among 759 cities with population 50,000 or more. Kyle, TX (33.7 per 1,000) is not on this volume list.

#	City	Permits (2024)	Per 1,000 residents	Intensity rank	vs volume rank
1	Fort Worth, TXpop. 941,311	13,148	14	#50 of 759	down 49
2	Houston, TXpop. 2,300,419	11,898	5.2	#233 of 759	down 231
3	Los Angeles, CApop. 3,857,897	10,488	2.7	#371 of 759	down 368
4	Austin, TXpop. 967,862	9,444	9.8	#98 of 759	down 94
5	Phoenix, AZpop. 1,624,832	8,997	5.5	#216 of 759	down 211
6	Atlanta, GApop. 499,287	8,109	16.2	#40 of 759	down 34
7	Nashville-Davidson, TNpop. 684,298	6,799	9.9	#95 of 759	down 88
8	San Diego, CApop. 1,385,061	6,615	4.8	#246 of 759	down 238
9	Jacksonville, FLpop. 961,739	6,398	6.7	#166 of 759	down 157
10	San Antonio, TXpop. 1,458,954	6,258	4.3	#272 of 759	down 262

Read the chart as text

Period	Permitted units
2019	851,399
2020	912,582
2021	1,072,271
2022	1,033,812
2023	914,458
2024	879,425

How do the PlainCities tools work?

What will a city lookup return?

Every tracked place has a base profile (28,702 cities). ACS income, rent, home value, poverty, and education cover most of the registry. Crime rates cover about 26.2%, Census PEP history about 63.1%, and NOAA climate normals about 13%. Missing layers stay blank rather than invented.

Are these city tools free?

Yes. Every tool on PlainCities is free, with no account or sign-up. They read directly from public federal data.

What data power the tools?

Census ACS 5-Year estimates for population, income and housing; FBI UCR for crime; NOAA Climate Normals for weather; Census Building Permits Survey for construction; Census PEP for 2020-2025 population change. The same data shown on every city profile.

Can I link to a comparison or search result?

Yes, the tools keep your selection in the page URL, so you can bookmark or share a specific comparison or filtered result.

Download the city profile extract these tools read: plaincities-cities.csv. Catalog: /data.

Every figure on PlainCities is rendered directly from Census ACS source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on Census ACS source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.