City safety & data profile

RadfordVA

Radford, VA is a 17K-resident city in Radford city with a median household income of $57,348.

Radford city, Virginia. Federal health, economic, and safety indicators for Radford, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and CMS Hospital Compare. Radford has a population larger than 36% of the 4,640 U.S. cities Areazine tracks, and a median home value of $220,700.

Data updated 2026-09-04

17K
Population (place)
Bottom 37%
By size
$57,348
Median income (place)
$220,700
Median home (place)
28.7%
Poverty rate (place)
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The read on Radford

Radford posts a median household income higher than 19% of U.S. cities Areazine tracks.

Bottom 20%
by median income, US cities

Where Radford income ranks nationally

Median household income vs. every place Areazine profiles (place-level ACS)

$57,348 Bottom 19% higher than 19% of 3,889 places Areazine profiles

Radford $0 $260,000 every profiled place, bucketed by value

Each bar is a $20K-wide band; taller bars hold more places Areazine profiles. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) · 2024 ACS 5-year

Largest cities in VA

Population among 102 VA places with 10,000+ residents and ACS income on Areazine. Tooltip shows the income rank in the same pool.

residents

What this shows Virginia Beach is the largest VA city on this list; Great Falls leads median income.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

Highest median incomes in VA

Median household income among the same 102-city pool. Tooltip shows the population rank.

median

What this shows Great Falls posts the highest place-level median income in VA; Virginia Beach is largest by headcount.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

The quick read

Reading Radford, VA beyond the headline numbers

Radford sits inside Radford city, Virginia, at roughly 37.13°N, -80.58°W. Population 17,403, $57,348 median household income. Median home value $220,700, median rent $1,033. Poverty rate 28.7%, read against that income figure since two cities on the same median can differ underneath it.

28.7% of Radford, VA residents live below the poverty line, placing it in the hardest-hit quarter of reporting cities. Read every median on this page against that: half the households are above it, and a large minority are far below.

The median home in Radford costs roughly 3.8 times median household income, below the midpoint for reporting cities, so ownership remains reachable on a typical local wage.

Only 5.3% of Radford workers report working from home, the lowest quarter of reporting cities -- an economy still built around showing up somewhere.

Among the CDC measures on this page, frequent mental distress departs furthest from its peer median: 23.9% in Radford, the highest-prevalence quarter of the 3,759 cities reporting that measure.

Radford's median age is 23.3 years, in the youngest quarter of reporting cities.

Sources: U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, plus live alerts for Radford from FEMA, NOAA, FDA, and CPSC. Economic comparison bars use the unweighted average across tracked Census places with a reported value, not a household-weighted national median.

Population (place)
17,403
Radford · Census Place
Median Income (place)
$57,348
-36% vs avg
Median Home Value (place)
$220,700
-47% vs avg
Median Age (place)
23.3
years · ACS place

10-Year Trends 2013–2024

County-level trend (Radford city): Radford's own historical series isn't separately published by the Census Bureau, so these year-over-year figures track the surrounding county, not the city alone.

20132024
Population
17K+0%
Median Income
$57,348+87%
Median Home Value
$220,700+53%
Poverty Rate
28.7%-24%
Unemployment
8%-6%

Economics

Economics indicators for Radford, VA
IndicatorValue
Median Rent
$1,033/mo
Poverty Rate
28.7% +131% vs avg
Unemployment 8%
Bachelor's Degree+ 37.9%
Work From Home 5.3%
Public Transit 0.2%

Population

White 82.4%
African American 9.4%
Asian 2.4%
Two or More Ethnicities 1.4%

Health Profile 15 measures

Health Indicators

Short Sleep Duration
36.7%
Obesity
34.8%
High Blood Pressure
28%
Physical Inactivity
25.4%
Frequent Mental Distress
23.9%
Binge Drinking
16.4%
Current Smoking
13.7%
Frequent Physical Distress
13.6%
Current Asthma
12.3%
Lack of Health Insurance
9.6%

Preventive Care

Dental Visit 59.4%
Annual Checkup 74.7%

Other Measures

Diabetes
9%
Coronary Heart Disease
5%
Stroke
2.7%

What alerts and safety updates affect Radford?

No area-tagged alerts are on record for Radford right now. New federal and counterpart-agency notices still land in the site feed as agencies publish them.

City alert dispatch desk

Sheet VA-RADFORD · Radford

Radford: 2 tagged alerts; lead category NWS weather alert.

  • VOL-TRACE 2 on record
  • WX-LED 100% weather
  • DESK-MIX NOAA
  • PHOTO-FINISH ≈ San Jose

Tagged alert mix: Radford

Published notices carrying this city slug or location tag

Value

What this shows 2 tagged notices on record for Radford.

Source Areazine publication corpus As of Live tagged feed

Nearest tagged-volume peer: San Jose, CA (2 tagged · Δ0)

Counts reflect published articles tagged to Radford; untagged NOAA county warnings may still appear in the site feed. Browse Virginia state hubs · Methodology

Cities with a similar tagged alert volume 4

Nearest published-notice counts on Areazine (2 tagged here), a feed-density peer set, not an ACS demographic match.

San Jose, CA 2 alerts Fresno, CA 2 alerts Pittsburgh, PA 2 alerts York, PA 2 alerts

Read with this city profile

Understanding Weather Alerts

Watch vs warning vs advisory, how NOAA labels map to action
All safety guides →

Frequently Asked Questions 5

What is the population of Radford, VA? ▼
Radford, VA has a population of 17,403 people, located in Radford city, Virginia.
What is the median household income in Radford? ▼
The median household income in Radford, VA is $57,348 per year, per the U.S. Census ACS. The poverty rate is 28.7%.
What is the median home value in Radford? ▼
The median home value in Radford, VA is $220,700. Median rent is $1,033/month.
What are the top health concerns in Radford? ▼
The top health indicators in Radford include Short Sleep Duration (36.7%), Obesity (34.8%), High Blood Pressure (28%). Data from CDC PLACES.
What is the median age in Radford? ▼
The median age in Radford, VA is 23.3 years. 37.9% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Nationwide cities with similar poverty or income 8

Two ACS-derived peer sets for Radford, both outside Virginia so the neighborhoods are not the geographic nearby list below.

Similar poverty rate

Nearest place-level ACS poverty rates outside VA (28.7% here).

Reading, PA 28.7% Cudahy, CA 28.7% Bowling Green, OH 28.6% Mercedes, TX 28.6%

Similar median income

Nearest place-level ACS median household incomes outside VA ($57,348 here).

Sterling, IL $57,350 Lincoln, IL $57,340 Bedford, OH $57,308 Markham, IL $57,302

Compare Radford with another city

Pick a second U.S. city to open a side-by-side profile on population, income, health, and hospitals, the same federal datasets as this page.

Quick picks:

Nearby Cities 8

Christiansburg, VA 22K Blacksburg, VA 44K Salem, VA 25K Cave Spring, VA 25K Mount Airy, NC 10K Roanoke, VA 100K Bluefield, WV 10K Hollins, VA 15K
All cities in Virginia → Compare Radford vs Christiansburg → All comparisons → Browse all cities

Using Radford's profile

Use this as a starting research checklist, not a verdict on whether to live here.

  • Check live recalls, weather and hazard alerts scoped to the Radford area before relying on national headlines. Check your area
  • Read the poverty rate alongside the income figure, two places with the same median can have very different realities.
  • Compare Radford against Virginia peers on any ranking lens. Explore Virginia

Population and economics (income, home value, poverty, education) are place-level U.S. Census ACS; health is CDC PLACES; hospital counts reflect facilities in and around the city. County-level trends are labeled when shown.

Data Sources

All data on this page comes from official U.S. government sources. Population and economic data from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates, place geography). Health data from the CDC PLACES program (2023). Hospital ratings from CMS Hospital Compare (2024). Climate data from NOAA. Education data from NCES. Cost of living from Bureau of Economic Analysis. Crime statistics, where referenced on Areazine, originate from the FBI Crime Data Explorer. Housing market figures referenced on Areazine come from HUD Fair Market Rents. Census economics and population are at place geography; some health and hospital indicators are reported at the county level (Radford city) where that is the smallest published unit.

Every figure on Areazine is published directly from official U.S. government sources, no number is typed in by an editor. City demographic and health figures are compiled directly from U.S. Census (place-level ACS), CDC, and CMS releases, updated quarterly within 30 days of upstream release. County-level trends are labeled when shown. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026.