Economics
How City Zip Compare Builds Its Rankings
Every ranking on this site is reproducible from public Census data. Here's exactly how we compute them, what we include, and what we exclude.
By City Zip Compare Editorial · April 25, 2026 · 6 min read
Every ranking on City Zip Compare is reproducible from publicly available Census Bureau data. We don't blend in vendor data, we don't apply opinion-driven weights, and we don't change the methodology release-to-release. Here's exactly what we do.
Source tables
All metrics come from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates (ACS5). Specifically: B01003 (population), B19013 (median household income), B19301 (per capita income), B25077 (median home value), B25064 (median gross rent), B25003 (housing tenure), B23025 (employment status), B15003 (educational attainment), B08303 (commute time), and S0101 (age structure).
Refresh schedule
The Census Bureau releases the ACS5 in early December each year. We pull the new vintage within 30 days of release. Place pages display the vintage of the underlying data; rankings always use the most recent release.
Geography handling
ZIP queries are mapped to the closest Census ZCTA. About 95% of residential ZIPs match cleanly. P.O. Box-only and unique-recipient ZIPs return no Census data, and we say so on the page.
City queries use Census 'place' geography (incorporated cities, towns, and Census-designated places). County queries use Census county FIPS. State queries use Census state FIPS.
What we don't do
We don't apply weighting schemes that could be gamed by vendors. We don't fold in proprietary data. We don't publish a single composite 'best places' score because every such score is opinion-driven and we'd rather show you the underlying numbers.
If you find a ranking on this site you can't reproduce from the cited Census table, it's a bug. Contact us via the link in the footer and we'll fix it.
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How Long Americans Commute, by ZIP Code
Average one-way commute time in the U.S. is 26.8 minutes. The variation by place is dramatic, and tells you a lot about local infrastructure and density.
FIPS Codes, ZCTAs and the Plumbing of U.S. Geographic Data
If you've ever tried to join Census data to a map and gotten lost, the problem is almost always a FIPS or ZCTA mismatch. Here's the plain-English guide.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Data: census.gov/programs-surveys/acs.