Harper Woods, Michigan

Area Profile

15,116 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Harper Woods, in Wayne County.

54out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 28% of 2,944 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2888th of 3,904 cities measured45
Schools2663rd of 2,668 cities measured4
Growth2200th of 2,973 cities measured36
Housing affordabilityTop 44% of 4,223 cities measured84
Climate3029th of 4,223 cities measured63
Physical resilienceTop 21% of 4,182 cities measured81
Access2650th of 4,226 cities measured88
Economic stability2927th of 4,226 cities measured49
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 6.5% and the Opportunity signal places Harper Woods in the bottom 26%.

In the public schools here, 5% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 20.5 students for every teacher.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published city profiles, placing Harper Woods in the top 21% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
15,116
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$65,022
Bottom 47% nationally
Density
5,750/sq mi
2.6 sq mi of land
Median age
37.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Wayne County
Michigan
Metro area
Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI
Nearest major airport
DTW
27 mi · Detroit Metro Wayne County
Median home value
$157,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 6.5% is lower than 5% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 0.9% over the past year, to 773,257 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$8,141$65,022Bottom 47%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,830$30,520Bottom 39%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate19.8%Top 24%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute27.5 minTop 46%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher26.1%Top 37%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment773,257Top 7%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.1%Top 50%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.9%Top 14%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force826,573Top 6%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation65.1%Top 34%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$69,210Top 48%of 3,6582025 OEWS
Median annual wage$52,080Top 44%of 3,6582025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.8%Top 14%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate6.5%Top 5%of 3,904June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202465k54k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $65,022 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.
Largest occupations — Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Miscellaneous Assemblers and Fabricators55,100$49,240
Retail Salespersons48,610$35,130
Home Health and Personal Care Aides46,480$35,120
Registered Nurses44,310$97,280
Fast Food and Counter Workers42,430$29,590
Cashiers37,910$30,090

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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

5% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 15% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 20.5 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
20.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
5.4%
Bottom 1% in Michigan
Reading proficiency
14.8%
Bottom 2% in Michigan
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Harper Woods High SchoolHarper Woods The School District of the City of87725.1
Chandler Park Academy Elementary · charterChandler Park Academy81720.93%7%
Chandler Park Academy High School · charterChandler Park Academy68818.6
Discovery Creative Pathways Harper Woods · charterDiscovery Creative Pathways60318.310%10%
Chandler Park Academy Middle School · charterChandler Park Academy51418.43%27%
Beacon Elementary SchoolHarper Woods The School District of the City of36820.4
Harper Woods Middle SchoolHarper Woods The School District of the City of35322.13%22%
Tyrone Elementary SchoolHarper Woods The School District of the City of33621.010%16%
The Harper Woods College and Career InstituteHarper Woods The School District of the City of0

87.9% 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 Michigan’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 $1,351 takes 25% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.4 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
24.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,351
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$157,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income2.42Bottom 35%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate67.1%Bottom 32%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4045,961Top 10%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$61$1,351Top 25%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$7,124$157,200Bottom 40%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income24.9%Top 17%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.1%Bottom 34%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
36/ 100
Ranks 2200 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is broadly steady, measured from 2020 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 fallen 3% since 2020, reaching 14,936 in 2024.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 2.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
34
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.2
Bottom 49% nationally
Year over year
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202415k15k
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
202020212022202320242025310.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 84°F and January a low of 20°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 29.9 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 55, in the Moderate band, and about 8 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station DETROIT CITY AP, 4.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index74.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation29.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low20°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high84°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10082024 calendar year
Median air quality index55.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing48°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
55
Moderate on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
74
90th percentile index
Days above 100
8
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

81 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are strong wind and winter weather.

Strong windModerate
Winter weatherModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, tornado, inland flooding, heat wave, ice storm, lightning, earthquake, landslide, hurricane, wildfire, coastal flooding, hail.

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.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Wayne County records 12.0 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 17.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 29.2 per 100,000 residents in Wayne County.

Homicide
12.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
29.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
11.6
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.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Wayne 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 Harper Woods rather than Harper Woods 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.

Reported crime
Offences reported to police are published by department rather than by town, and only where a department reported every month of the year. No municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — so there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.
Taxes and full cost of living
No public source publishes either with national coverage and a method open enough to check. 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. 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

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 27 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Detroit Metro Wayne CountyDTW27 mi12,003 ft
Eugene F Kranz Toledo ExpressTOL74 mi10,600 ft
Capital Region IntlLAN87 mi8,506 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.

Customize your score

What matters to you?

Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.

Area Score
54
Your Score

Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.

Other cities in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
DetroitWayne County638,53052vs Harper Woods
WarrenMacomb County137,92858vs Harper Woods
Sterling HeightsMacomb County133,57366vs Harper Woods
DearbornWayne County107,42357vs Harper Woods
LivoniaWayne County93,85176vs Harper Woods
TroyOakland County87,89877vs Harper Woods
WestlandWayne County83,63358vs Harper Woods
Farmington HillsOakland County83,51571vs Harper Woods
Rochester HillsOakland County77,08975vs Harper Woods
SouthfieldOakland County76,23662vs Harper Woods
NoviOakland County66,71777vs Harper Woods
PontiacOakland County62,10460vs Harper Woods

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
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
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
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)
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
2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
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 Harper Woods

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
4822516,098$61,75053