AreaProfile

67846Garden City, Kansas

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 67846.

58
Area Score
Bottom 44% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 29% of 6,210 published ZIP areas65
Schools2706th of 4,422 published ZIP areas43
GrowthTop 17% of 5,428 published ZIP areas69
Housing affordabilityTop 9% of 6,685 published ZIP areas100
Climate5796th of 6,789 published ZIP areas60
Physical resilience4880th of 6,709 published ZIP areas35
Access6763rd of 6,791 published ZIP areas0
Economic stabilityTop 42% of 6,742 published ZIP areas64
The quick read

Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 150 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 477% on the prior year.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles, with rent taking 17% of median household income.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by hail, drought and tornado.

At a glance

Population
34,475
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$73,218
Top 48% nationally
Density
44/sq mi
782.3 sq mi of land
Median age
32.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Garden City
Kansas
Metro area
Garden City, KS
Nearest major airport
ICT
184 mi · Wichita Dwight D Eisenhower Ntl
Median home value
$196,100
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.4% is lower than 89% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 0.9% over the past year, to 15,556 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,632$73,218Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,282$32,827Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate11.1%Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute16.0 minBottom 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher18.8%Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment15,556Bottom 11%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.4%Top 12%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.9%Bottom 46%June 2026
Labor force16,103Bottom 11%June 2026
Labor force participation69.7%Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 44%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.4%Bottom 11%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202473k61k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $73,218 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 does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Garden City, KS, the city containing this ZIP code.

23% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 29% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
17
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
23.4%
Bottom 41% in Kansas
Reading proficiency
29.4%
Bottom 33% in Kansas
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Garden City High SchoolGarden City1,94615.2
Jennie Wilson ElemGarden City79649.836%46%
Horace J. Good Middle SchoolGarden City58311.49%17%
Kenneth Henderson MiddleGarden City42513.717%22%
Charles O Stones Intermediate CtrGarden City37711.117%27%
Florence Wilson ElemGarden City37616.334%30%
Bernadine Sitts Intermediate CtrGarden City36713.112%27%
Victor Ornelas ElemGarden City35113.527%22%
Alta Brown ElemGarden City33614.026%30%
Abe Hubert Elementary SchoolGarden City28512.415%28%
Buffalo Jones ElemGarden City22113.815%25%
Edith Scheuerman ElemGarden City20412.029%35%

75.5% 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 Kansas’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 →

Median rent of $1,051 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.7 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
17.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,051
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$196,100
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.68Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate63.7%Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±15813,283Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$44$1,051Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$11,448$196,100Bottom 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.2%Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.9%Bottom 37%2024 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
69/ 100
Top 17% of 5,428 published city profiles

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.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 5% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 5.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
150
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
5.4
Top 28% nationally
Year over year
+477%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
4.7%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Garden City, KS, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

6 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 18°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 18.9 inches.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station GARDEN CITY RGNL AP, 7.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation18.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low18°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high92°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing47°F1991-2020 Normals

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.

Physical risk

35 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hail, drought and tornado.

DroughtModerate
HailHigh
Winter weatherModerate
Strong windModerate
TornadoElevated
Cold waveElevated
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: ice storm, lightning, wildfire, inland flooding, earthquake, landslide.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. ZIP values are the land-area-weighted mean of the counties the ZIP Code Tabulation Area intersects. Expected annual loss is not allocated below county level. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

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.

Crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. Reported crime is also easy to misread: agency participation varies year to year, and a city that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

No airport meeting the AreaProfile major-airport definition lies within 100 miles; the nearest is 184 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Wichita Dwight D Eisenhower NtlICT184 mi10,302 ft
Beech FactoryBEC196 mi8,001 ft
Enid Woodring RgnlWDG200 mi8,613 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
58
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Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
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
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
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)
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them

Profile recalculated August 29, 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.

67846 vs Garden City

How this ZIP area compares with Garden City as a whole. Both figures come from the same ACS release, so the comparison is like for like.

67846
Garden City
Median household income
$73,218
vs
$72,865
Per capita income
$32,827
vs
$32,458
Population density
44/sq mi
vs
2,483/sq mi
Median home value
$196,100
vs
$192,000
Median gross rent
$1,051
vs
$1,052
Homeownership rate
63.7%
vs
60.2%
Bachelor's degree or higher
18.8%
vs
17.5%
Poverty rate
11.1%
vs
11.0%
Median age
32.2
vs
31.6

Some demographic statistics use Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, which approximate but do not exactly match USPS ZIP delivery geography. See the methodology for how AreaProfile maps between them.