Living in Fort Lauderdale, FL

Crime rates in Fort Lauderdale are a touch above the national midpoint. The violent crime index comes in at 101 and property crime at 107, where 100 represents the U.S. average. That's not alarming, but it's enough that you should spend real time researching specific neighborhoods rather than assuming everywhere is equally fine. Talk to people who live there, walk the streets at different hours, and check the local police department's crime map. FBI UCR data.

Most households manage fine. Median rent in Fort Lauderdale is $1,776/month, and the typical household pulls in $79,935/year — a 26.7% rent-to-income ratio. That's under the 30% threshold where housing costs start to pinch, though not by a huge margin. If you're a single earner or have significant debt payments, run your own numbers carefully. For dual-income households, the math works out comfortably. Census ACS 2023.

Worth considering, yes. At 22 minutes average, the commute in Fort Lauderdale isn't brutal but it's not trivial either. 66.3% drive alone, 2.6% ride transit, and 17.5% work remotely. Where you live relative to your office will make a bigger difference than the city-wide average suggests.

Fort Lauderdale faces a moderate level of climate risk — score of 46/100. The top threats are Hurricane, Flood, and Heat Wave. None of these hit every year, but they're real possibilities that affect insurance rates and emergency planning. Make sure your policy covers the relevant perils, keep a basic emergency kit, and know your evacuation routes if you're in a flood-prone area. FEMA and NOAA data.

Good, overall. The median AQI sits at 37, which falls within the EPA's "Good" category, and Fort Lauderdale logs 288 clean-air days annually. Ozone is the main pollutant. Occasional spikes happen — wildfire smoke, temperature inversions, or high-ozone days — but they're the exception, not the rule. Check AirNow.gov during allergy season or summer heat waves.

Everything on this page is built from public government sources: rent and income figures from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS 5-Year Estimates, 2023); commute and transportation data from Census ACS tables B08303 and B08006; crime rates from the FBI Uniform Crime Report; climate risk assessments using FEMA disaster declarations and NOAA storm records; air quality measurements from the EPA's Air Quality System database. We refresh each dataset monthly through an automated pipeline and cross-check for anomalies. No surveys, no user-submitted guesses — just official federal data presented in a way that's actually useful for people researching a move.