Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Area Profile

10,241 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Glenwood Springs, in Garfield County.

53out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 23% of 2,944 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 41% of 3,904 cities measured60
GrowthTop 32% of 2,973 cities measured60
Housing affordability3702nd of 4,223 cities measured53
Climate4124th of 4,223 cities measured53
Physical resilience3495th of 4,182 cities measured22
Access2241st of 4,226 cities measured91
Economic stabilityTop 23% of 4,226 cities measured73
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.1% and median household income $91,481, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 6.8 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 24% of it.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, avalanche and wildfire.

At a glance

Population
10,241
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$91,481
Top 24% nationally
Density
1,755/sq mi
5.8 sq mi of land
Median age
36.3
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Garfield County
Colorado
Metro area
Rifle, CO
Nearest major airport
EGE
24 mi · Eagle County Rgnl
Median home value
$619,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.1% is lower than 94% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 3.3% over the past year, to 32,034 employed residents.

36% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 78% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$13,278$91,481Top 24%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,242$42,207Top 28%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate7.9%Bottom 37%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute30.9 minTop 30%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher36.3%Top 22%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment32,034Bottom 39%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.1%Bottom 30%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-3.3%Bottom 4%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force33,054Bottom 39%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation75.8%Top 8%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 43%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate3.1%Bottom 6%of 3,904June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202491k70k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $91,481 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Garfield County, CO, which contains this city.

There are 15.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Glenwood Springs High SchoolRoaring Fork School District No. Re-11,03218.8
Two Rivers Community School · charterRoaring Fork School District No. Re-139012.6
Riverview SchoolRoaring Fork School District No. Re-138313.7
Glenwood Springs Middle SchoolRoaring Fork School District No. Re-138014.1
Yampah Mountain SchoolColorado River BOCES18116.5
The Yampah Mountain High School NurseryColorado River BOCES0

48.8% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Colorado’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

A new two-bedroom lease runs about $1,605, below the $1,867 tenants already here pay, which is unusual and generally means asking rents have softened.

Median rent of $1,867 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.8 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
24.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
6.8×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,867
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$619,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income6.77Top 6%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate54.7%Bottom 14%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3054,201Top 13%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Market rent, one bedroom$1,223FY2026
Market rent, three bedroom$2,232FY2026
Market rent, two bedroom$1,605FY2026
Median gross rent ±$282$1,867Top 11%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$41,866$619,000Top 8%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income24.5%Top 19%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.3%Bottom 39%of 32,0012024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
60/ 100
Top 32% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2022 to 2025.

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

Population has grown 3% since 2020, reaching 10,311 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

At 2.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
20
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.0
Bottom 45% nationally
Year over year
+150%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
25.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202410k10k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
2022202320242025589.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+167%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 92°F and January a low of 13°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 10.7 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 49, in the Good band, and about 5 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

0°20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station RIFLE GARFIELD CO AP, 20.5 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND1.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index74.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation10.7"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low13°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high92°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10052024 calendar year
Median air quality index49.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing49°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
49
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
74
90th percentile index
Days above 100
5
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

22 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, avalanche and wildfire.

LandslideModerate
WildfireElevated
AvalancheModerate
Inland floodingElevated
EarthquakeModerate
Volcanic activityModerate
Cold waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: lightning, drought, heat wave, ice storm, winter weather, strong wind, hail, tornado.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

Violent crime
366
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year
Property crime
3,513
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year

Below these are deaths rather than offences, published for the county. The two measure different things and are not comparable with each other.

Glenwood Springs's police department reported 366 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, near the middle of places with a department reporting. Property crime runs at 3,513.

Garfield County records 2.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 20.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 14.8 per 100,000 residents in Garfield County.

Homicide
2.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
20.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
14.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
33.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Offences are reported to the FBI by Glenwood Springs’s own police department, for the population it serves, and are shown only where it reported every month of the year — a partial year is withheld rather than scaled up. Reported crime counts what was reported to and recorded by police, which is not the same as what happened, and a place that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate. Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Garfield County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Glenwood Springs rather than Glenwood Springs itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Taxes
Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
Anything about a specific address
Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

7 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 24 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Eagle County RgnlEGE24 mi9,000 ft
Aspen-Pitkin County/Sardy FldASE34 mi8,006 ft
Yampa ValleyHDN65 mi10,000 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Area Score
53
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Other cities in Rifle, CO

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
RifleRio Blanco County10,57049vs Glenwood Springs

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
safetyFederal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer
Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency
2025 calendar yearAnnually, with monthly revisions
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
HousingU.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research
Fair Market Rents
FY2026Annually, each October for the coming fiscal year
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in Glenwood Springs

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
8160116,844$109,12955