How Does Crandall Stack Up? Grading Our City Against 10 Texas Towns Our Size

Crandall sits at 4,763 residents, according to the most recent United States Census Bureau data compiled by the American Community Survey. That makes it the 439th largest city in Texas out of nearly 1,800 incorporated cities and towns. So we asked a simple question. How does our city compare to the 10 Texas towns that sit closest to us on the population chart, five just above us and five just below us in size.

We graded all eleven towns, Crandall included, across five categories that show up again and again in conversations at the feed store and the city council meeting. Median household income. Poverty rate. Median home value. Violent crime rate. Property crime rate. Every figure below comes from the United States Census Bureau American Community Survey as compiled by Data USA and Census Reporter for income, poverty and home values, and from AreaVibes’ analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Reports for the crime figures, unless otherwise noted under a card. Grades are assigned on a curve against the other ten towns in this group, not against the state or national average.

Category One: Median Household Income

Crandall households earn a median of $88,997 per year. That is the best mark in this entire comparison group, putting Crandall ahead of every single peer town on the income chart.

Source: United States Census Bureau American Community Survey, 2024 estimates, as compiled by Data USA and Census Reporter.

Category Two: Poverty Rate

This is the category where Crandall has real work to do. 19.9 percent of Crandall residents live below the poverty line, a rate that does not match up with the town’s strong median income and places Crandall in the bottom half of this comparison group. Lower is better here.

Source: United States Census Bureau American Community Survey, 2024 estimates, as compiled by Data USA and Census Reporter. Note the margin of error on small town poverty figures runs wide, sometimes plus or minus ten percentage points or more, given the small sample sizes involved.

Category Three: Median Home Value

The typical Crandall home is valued at $303,000. That is the highest figure in this comparison group, reflecting newer housing stock and the town’s position along the United States Highway 175 corridor southeast of Dallas.

Source: United States Census Bureau American Community Survey, 2024 estimates, as compiled by Data USA. Morgan’s Point Resort figure uses a city-data.com estimate since Data USA’s most recent figure was suppressed for sample size.

Category Four: Violent Crime Rate

Crandall posts the weakest violent crime mark in this entire group, though it is worth noting that with a town this size, even a handful of incidents in a single year can swing the rate sharply from one reporting period to the next.

Source: AreaVibes analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Reports, primarily 2023 and 2024 reporting years, the most current available for each town. Falfurrias figure reflects the most recently published reporting year, 2022. La Joya and Crosby figures pull from NeighborhoodScout and CrimeGrade.org respectively, which use different methodologies than AreaVibes, so these are close estimates rather than a precise match to the other figures in this category. In towns this small, a single violent incident can move the rate by several points year to year, so single year snapshots should be read with caution.

Category Five: Property Crime Rate

Crandall also posts the highest property crime figure in this group, though again the sample size at this population level is small enough that a handful of vehicle break ins or thefts in a given year can move the rate considerably.

Source: AreaVibes analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Reports, primarily 2023 and 2024 reporting years. La Joya figures were unavailable in a directly comparable per resident format at publication time and have been excluded from this category. Crosby figure uses a NeighborhoodScout estimate. Morgan’s Point Resort and Falfurrias figures reflect older or differently formatted FBI reporting years, so all small town figures here should be read as directional rather than exact across years.

The Final Read

Crandall is a town pulling in two different directions. On the money side of the ledger, household income and home values, Crandall leads this entire comparison group, outperforming every one of its ten Texas peers. That is a genuinely strong position for a town this size to hold, and it likely reflects newer rooftops and the steady pull of the Dallas Fort Worth job market along Highway 175.

But the poverty rate, the violent crime figure and the property crime figure all land at the bottom of the group, and that combination, strong income alongside weak poverty and crime numbers, suggests a town with real income inequality between households. Some Crandall families are doing very well. Others are not, and the crime figures may be telling a piece of that same story. Worth remembering too that Crandall is a small town, and small towns see their crime rates swing harder from year to year than big cities do, since a handful of incidents move the percentage a lot more when the population base is this small.