By the BestNeighborhood data science team. Last updated September 25, 2026.

Enter a city or zip code to see population, housing, rent, education, and jobs data for any city, county, zip code, or neighborhood in the US:

Local Demographics in 10 Measures

Every city, county, zip code, and neighborhood in the US has a BestNeighborhood demographics page. Each one maps 10 measures neighborhood by neighborhood on one interactive map and follows each of them across the last five ACS releases, in five sections: population and households, housing, rent, education, and jobs. The latest figures come from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) 2020–2024 5-year estimates, the most recent release as of September 2026.

Demographics Pages and Best Neighborhoods

The demographics pages are for digging into one measure at a time: how old residents are, how many households rent, when the homes were built, and how many adults finished college. Each measure gets its own map layer, chart, and table, so it is easy to see where a single trait runs high or low and how it has changed.

To find the best place to live with every factor weighed at once, start with Best Neighborhoods instead. It scores every neighborhood in the US on 40 measures, including education, home age, vacancy, housing costs, and jobs, and lets you set how much each one matters to you. The Best Places to Live rankings apply the same measures to whole metro areas, cities, and towns.

What Each Demographics Page Shows

Each page opens with the area’s population and a row of 10 numbers above one map. Pick a number to map that measure by neighborhood; the arrow under it shows the change since 2016–2020. The map loads with a click, zooms in to show neighborhood detail, and has a colorblind-friendly setting. Below the map, each measure has a chart and a table covering the five ACS releases from 2016–2020 to 2020–2024, set beside the larger areas around the place and the US as a whole.

Section	Measures	What the numbers show
Population and households	Household size, resident age, single-parent homes	The average number of people per household, the median age compared with the national median, and the share of households headed by a single parent
Housing	Owners and renters, vacancy, home age	The share of households that rent, the share of owners who own free and clear, the vacancy rate, and the median year homes were built
Rent	Rent cost	Median monthly rent, how it has changed and how it ranks among similar places, the share of income a typical renter spends on rent, and the parts of the area where rents run highest and lowest
Education	Bachelor’s degrees, high school graduates	The share of adults 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and the share with a high school diploma or equivalent
Jobs	Unemployment	The unemployment rate, mapped neighborhood by neighborhood

Near the end, one table sets every measure beside nearby places of the same kind, and a list links to places with a similar population. A line under the map links to the other BestNeighborhood maps for the same area, including Walk Grade, household income, political lean, traffic noise, and internet service.

How the Largest US Cities Compare

The table shows each measure for the US as a whole, along with the highest and lowest values among the 91 US cities with at least 250,000 residents. Each city name opens that section of the city’s demographics page.

Measure	United States	Highest big city	Lowest big city
Median age	38.9	St. Petersburg, FL: 43.1	Laredo, TX: 29.9
Average household size	2.53	Santa Ana, CA: 3.81	St. Louis, MO: 1.92
Single-parent households	10.0%	Newark, NJ: 20.7%	Seattle, WA: 4.1%
Homes that are rented	34.8%	Newark, NJ: 75.6%	Chesapeake, VA: 25.6%
Vacancy rate	10.1%	Detroit, MI: 21.7%	Santa Ana, CA: 3.1%
Median year homes were built	1980	Gilbert, AZ: 2003	St. Louis, MO: 1938
Median gross rent	$1,413	Irvine, CA: $2,997	Toledo, OH: $901
Median home value	$332,700	San Francisco, CA: $1,394,500	Detroit, MI: $83,900
Bachelor’s degree or higher, adults 25+	35.7%	Irvine, CA: 70.6%	Detroit, MI: 18.1%
High school graduate or higher, adults 25+	89.6%	Irvine, CA: 96.7%	Santa Ana, CA: 66.9%
Employment rate	94.8%	Madison, WI: 97.3%	Detroit, MI: 86.0%

Big cities skew young and rent more than the country as a whole. Only 6 of the 91 have a median age above the national 38.9. In 88 of them, a larger share of homes is rented than nationwide, and renters outnumber owners in 36.

Housing age tracks when each city grew. The median home in St. Louis and Buffalo dates to 1938. In Gilbert, Arizona, and North Las Vegas, half of all homes were built in 2003 or later.

The national vacancy rate of 10.1% runs above the rate in 70 of the 91 big cities. Part of the gap comes from vacation homes, which the Census Bureau counts as vacant and which cluster outside big cities.

Where These Numbers Come From

The demographics pages and this page draw on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates, the most recent release available as of September 2026. BestNeighborhood updates both when the Census Bureau publishes each new release.

The big-city table uses the Census Bureau’s published figures for each city’s legal limits. The demographics pages build each figure from the neighborhoods inside an area, weighted by population, so a city’s page can differ slightly from the table. For several of the largest cities, the page describes the whole metro area rather than the city alone.

The survey reaches about 3.5 million addresses a year. Pooling five years of answers gives enough of them to map single neighborhoods. Every estimate has a margin of error, and the margin is wider for a single neighborhood than for a whole city.

More Data for Every Area

BestNeighborhood covers much more than demographics:

Best Neighborhoods: every neighborhood scored on 40 measures, weighted by what matters to you
Best Places to Live: metro areas, cities, and towns ranked on the same 40 measures
Household income: median household and per capita income
Home prices: home values and the most affordable neighborhoods
Rent prices: median rent and the share of income it takes
Race and diversity: racial and ethnic makeup and a diversity score
Cost of living: local prices for housing and everyday spending
Walk Grade: how walkable each neighborhood is on foot
Political lean: estimated partisan lean by neighborhood
Traffic noise: noise from roads, rail, and aircraft
Community health: health needs by neighborhood
Internet providers: providers, coverage, and advertised speeds
Cell phone coverage: AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile coverage

Demographics by State

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-Year Estimates: tables B01002 (median age), B25010 (household size), B11005 (households by presence of people under 18), B25003 (tenure), B25002 (occupancy status), B25035 (median year built), B25064 (median gross rent), B25077 (median value), B15003 (educational attainment), and B23025 (employment status). data.census.gov
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey: About the ACS. census.gov

Compiled by the BestNeighborhood data science team from U.S. Census Bureau data. The big-city figures are the Census Bureau’s published values, with no adjustment.

Demographics by City and Neighborhood: Population, Housing, Rent, Education and Jobs