City-level data
How the City level works: the fourteen indicators measured for the place itself, why small towns show dashes and a Partial ACS coverage badge, what CDP and the Incorporated only filter mean, which extra indicators are inherited from the county, and how the map decides what to draw.
Before you start
- City level covers roughly 32,000 U.S. places — every incorporated city, town, village, and borough, plus every census-designated place — across the 50 states and Washington, D.C.
- City level has no Composite Score, no category scores, no Benchmarks, and no SWAT Analysis. It lists indicators directly. If you need scores, work at County, Metro, or State level.
- City level has no TOP 5 card either. Its map colours by one indicator at a time rather than by a score.
The fourteen city indicators
These fourteen are measured for the place itself, from the Census American Community Survey 5-Year estimates. They appear under City metrics (ACS-native) in the detail panel, grouped exactly as the panel groups them:
| Group | Indicators |
|---|---|
| People | Population, Pop. Growth (5yr), Median Age, Poverty Rate |
| Income & housing | Median HH Income, Per Capita Income, Median Home Value, Median Rent, Home/Income Ratio |
| Work & connectivity | Median Wage, Labor Force Part., Bachelor's+, Avg Commute, Broadband Access |
The map's Color by metric dropdown offers exactly these fourteen and nothing else. It opens on Median HH Income.
Why a value shows as a dash
The Census withholds most estimates for very small places — broadly, below about 2,000 residents — because the sample is too thin to publish. Where a value is withheld, the cell shows —.
A withheld city value is never filled in from the county. Insights would rather show nothing than present a county-wide figure as if it described a town of 800 people.
When a place is missing any of its fourteen indicators, an amber Partial ACS coverage badge appears next to its name in the detail panel. The badge is a heads-up that you are looking at an incomplete profile, not an error.
Incorporated places and CDPs
Two kinds of place sit in the city universe:
- Incorporated places — cities, towns, villages, and boroughs with a municipal government.
- Census-designated places (CDPs) — real, named communities that the Census counts and publishes data for but which have no municipal government. They carry a CDP pill next to the name and the panel's About this place section explains the distinction.
The toolbar's Incorporated only checkbox is on by default, so CDPs are hidden from the map and table until you clear it. Search is the exception: typing into Search cities… looks across every place whether or not Incorporated only is on, and picking a CDP from the results reveals it on the map.
More indicators, and what the County pill means
More indicators in the detail panel carries roughly 46 further indicators beyond the fourteen. Each row is one of two things:
- Measured for this place — a city-grain upgrade from a separate source. These are unemployment, violent crime, and Zillow's home value and asking rent.
- Inherited from the county — carrying a small County pill. No source publishes these below county grain, so the place shows its principal county's figure.
Hover any row to see its source and the period it covers. More indicators is the only place in Explore that prints a per-row source and vintage.
The inherited catalogue groups roughly like this:
| Family | Examples |
|---|---|
| Work & earnings | Total Employment, Avg Weekly Wage, QWI earnings and turnover, LODES jobs, High-Earnings Jobs Share |
| Cost | Cost of Living Index, Electricity Rate |
| Housing programmes | LIHTC projects, low-income units, and recent allocations |
| Risk & weather | Disaster Declarations, storm and tornado averages, storm property damage, NFIP flood claims, the five NRI risk measures, Air Quality Index |
| Health | Health Ranking, Physicians, Dentists, Hospital and nursing-home beds, primary-care shortage designation, three Medicare measures |
| Environment & access | Walkability Index, temperature, precipitation, heating and cooling degree days, rail service and route miles, Rural-Urban Class |
If a place has no parent county — which is the case for Washington, D.C. places — the section says so and shows nothing. A place whose county publishes nothing extra reads No additional indicators are published for this place.
Which county a city is attributed to
Each place is attributed to one principal county, and that county is what the panel header, the map tooltip, and every inherited value use.
Where a city spans several counties, the principal county is taken from the first county in the Census's own list for that place, and the Census lists them alphabetically rather than by significance. That is why a handful of large multi-county cities are attributed to a county that is not the one you would name — Dallas appears under Collin County, Austin under Bastrop, New York City under Bronx, Tulsa under Osage.
This affects which county's figures the County-pilled rows inherit. The place's own fourteen indicators are unaffected — they are measured for the place itself.
How the map decides what to draw
City level draws roughly 32,000 places, so the map manages what it renders:
- Marker budget. At most 2,000 markers are drawn at once. Zoomed out, the largest places win the budget and smaller ones are not drawn; zoom in and the places in view reappear. A place you cannot see is not missing from the dataset.
- Boundaries. City outlines only draw once you are zoomed in past a certain level, or for a place you have opened or ticked for comparison. Loading city boundaries… appears while they fetch.
- Drill-in. At the national view, clicking a state drills into it and sets the Focus a state dropdown. Reset view clears it.
- Zoom. Use Zoom in, Zoom out, and Reset view at the top right of the map. Picking a city from the search box or the table pans and zooms the map to it; clicking a marker does not move the map.
The Split-view viewport filter
In Split view, once you are zoomed in, the table narrows to just the cities currently in the map's viewport, with a banner reading Showing N cities in view (or No cities in view) and a Show all link to opt out. A selection overrides the filter: as soon as you open a city or tick cities for comparison, the table lists exactly that set instead.
Exporting cities
City level exports up to 15 cities at a time — a higher cap than the 10 used at State, Metro, County, and EDD level. The Export button is disabled until you either open a city or tick at least one, and its tooltip reads Select up to 15 cities to export when nothing is chosen.
The file is incenti-cities-selection.csv. Its columns and the meaning of
its blank cells are in
Export and CSV formats.
Common questions
Q: What does "Partial ACS coverage" mean, and why is a value shown as "—" for my town? A: The Census withholds most estimates for places below roughly 2,000 residents, so those cells show a dash. The amber Partial ACS coverage badge marks a place missing one or more of its fourteen indicators. A withheld value is never replaced with the county's number.
Q: What does the CDP tag mean, and why is my town hidden until I untick "Incorporated only"? A: CDP stands for census-designated place — a real community the Census publishes data for, but without a municipal government. The Incorporated only checkbox is on by default and hides CDPs from the map and table. Search still finds them, and picking one from the results reveals it.
Q: Why is Dallas listed under Collin County? A: A place that spans several counties is attributed to the first county in the Census's list for that place, and that list is alphabetical rather than ranked. A small number of large multi-county cities are attributed this way. It affects which county's figures the County-pilled rows inherit; the city's own fourteen indicators are measured for the city itself.
Q: What is the "County" pill next to an indicator? A: It marks a value inherited from the city's principal county because no source publishes that indicator below county grain. Rows without the pill are measured for the place itself. Hover any row to see its source and period.
Q: Why did small cities disappear from the map when I zoomed out? A: The map draws at most 2,000 markers at a time and gives the budget to the largest places first. Zoom back in, or use the search box or the table, and the place will be there.
Q: Why does the table in Split view only show a few cities? A: In Split view the table narrows to the cities currently in the map's viewport. Click Show all in the banner to see the full filtered list again, or switch to Table view, which never applies the viewport filter.
Q: Why doesn't a city have a Composite Score or a Benchmarks section? A: City level has no scores, benchmarks, or SWAT Analysis. The indicators published below county grain are too sparse to score fairly across 32,000 places, so City level lists indicators directly. Use County, Metro, or State level when you need a score.
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