Sylvan SpringsAL
A town of 1,600, settled in 1960.
Is Sylvan Springs a good place to live?
The best of Sylvan Springs’ subject grades are a B+ for cost of living and a B for incomes; the weakest is a C− for walkability. Sylvan Springs’ trail network density is 1.2 miles per square mile, above both Alabama’s towns (0.1) and U.S. towns (0.4). On history, just 27 of Alabama’s 308 towns do worse. Sylvan Springs's civic life (library use, community groups, volunteering) trails 84% of U.S. towns. Sylvan Springs has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade.
98% of working residents leave Sylvan Springs for work
Where Sylvan Springs’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
How Sylvan Springs grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Alabama), ordered by how far Sylvan Springs is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Bryant–Denny Stadium and 23 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Sylvan Springs. Close and well known come first.
Big draw37 mi Stadium & arenaBryant–Denny Stadium
11 mi Stadium & arenaLegion Field
13 mi Stadium & arenaProtective Stadium
14 mi MuseumSloss Furnaces
13 mi Stadium & arenaLegacy Arena29 mi LakeLewis Smith LakePhoto credits
Bryant–Denny Stadium: Joel יוֹאֵל, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Legion Field: USGS, Public domain · Protective Stadium: Unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Sloss Furnaces: DXR, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Legacy Arena: AuburnShuffle, CC0
Moving to Sylvan Springs: who provides what
Who provides power, water and the rest in Sylvan Springs, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Nov 18, 2024.
The data
Ordered by what stands out in Sylvan Springs.
With only 0.2 jobs per working resident, most people in Sylvan Springs work out of town
The share of working residents in Sylvan Springs who work locally: 1.8%. The mean commuting time for Sylvan Springs comes to 31 minutes, above both the Alabama town median (25 minutes) and the median of U.S. towns (25 minutes). Since 2013, Sylvan Springs has added 45 jobs, to 110 in 2023. Half commute less than 14 miles.
| Sylvan Springs | Alabama towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average trip to work | 31 minutes | 25 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Working residents who work in town | 1.8% | 10% | 8% |
| Below the poverty line | 11% | 16% | 9.6% |
| Median household income | $82,000 | $62,000 | $80,000 |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Sylvan Springs faces a high natural-hazard risk, led by inland flooding
Compared with 72% of U.S. communities, expected storm and flood damage in Sylvan Springs is higher. 62% of the town’s expected losses from natural hazards come from inland flooding, followed by tornadoes at 18%. Households in the town have drawn federal disaster aid in 3 declared disasters, most recently in 2011.
FEMA disaster declarations and aid · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
In Sylvan Springs, expect mild winters and hot summers
Expect July afternoons of 91° and January nights of 33°, with about 1 inches of snow a winter.
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
A smaller share of adults sleep under 7 hours in Sylvan Springs than in most of Alabama or the rest of the country
In Sylvan Springs, 16% of adults binge drink. CDC measures, 32 in all: Sylvan Springs beats Alabama on 13 and trails on 1.
| Sylvan Springs | Alabama towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 32% | 40% | 36% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 32% | 39% | 35% |
| Frequent mental distress (CDC PLACES) | 16% | 18% | 17% |
| Food insecurity (CDC PLACES) | 11% | 19% | 14% |
| What stands out | Sylvan Springs | AL |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer older adults who have lost all their teeth | 8.4% | 15.4% |
| Fewer adults facing food insecurity | 11.4% | 19.2% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 11.1% | 8.2% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Homes in Sylvan Springs are worth about $205K, by Zillow’s estimate
Typical home values rose 4.3% in the year to September 2026. The typical rent in Sylvan Springs is $1,313 a month. For households in the town, the share who own their home is 83%.
| Sylvan Springs | Alabama towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 83% | 69% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,313 a month | $940 a month | $1,185 a month |
Typical home value
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
More middle-aged adults than Alabama overall
Sylvan Springs’ median age comes in at 44 years. Adults 35 to 64 are just over two in five residents (38% statewide); adults 18 to 34 are 18% of residents (22% statewide). Among residents in the town, 19% are under 18. It has lost 4.1% of its people since 2020, down to 1,600 in the Census Bureau’s 2025 estimate.
| Sylvan Springs | Alabama towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 18 | 19% | 23% | 22% |
| Median age | 44 years | 39.2 years | 40.5 years |
| Aged 65 or older | 20% | 18% | 18% |
| Bachelor’s degree or more, 25+ | 22% | 23% | 29% |
Ages · share of residents
Education · adults 25 and older
Women and men · all residents
47% women, 53% men
That’s an even split within the survey’s margin of ±5 points. Across Alabama, 51.4% of residents are women. Among residents 18 to 24, 80% are men (AL 50%).
| Sylvan Springs | AL | U.S. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | 6.7% | 11.8% | 11.6% |
| 10 to 17 | 12.6% | 10.4% | 10.3% |
| 18 to 24 | 7.5% | 9.5% | 9.1% |
| 25 to 34 | 10.9% | 12.9% | 13.7% |
| 35 to 44 | 13.9% | 12.4% | 13.2% |
| 45 to 54 | 12.8% | 12.2% | 12.2% |
| 55 to 64 | 15.2% | 13% | 12.7% |
| 65 to 74 | 10.3% | 10.7% | 10.2% |
| 75 and older | 10.1% | 7.1% | 7% |
| No diploma | 6% | 11.4% | 10.4% |
| High school | 38% | 30.3% | 26% |
| Some college | 26.1% | 20.8% | 19.1% |
| Associate’s | 8.3% | 9.1% | 8.8% |
| Bachelor’s | 10.9% | 17.3% | 21.6% |
| Graduate | 10.7% | 11.1% | 14.1% |
Census population estimates, 2025 · U.S. Census Bureau · ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates · in a town of 1,600, single groups can be off by several points
Conserved land covers 0.5% of Sylvan Springs
11 miles of trail in 1 park or preserve. Parks and preserves in Sylvan Springs: one, of 17 acres.
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Sylvan Springs Park | — | 17 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Everything we know about Sylvan Springs
Colleges nearby
6 within 15 miles of the center of Sylvan Springs
About 7 of every 100 Sylvan Springs residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Alabama.
About Sylvan Springs
Town in Alabama, United States
Sylvan Springs is a town in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States, located northwest of the Birmingham suburb of Pleasant Grove. It incorporated on May 22, 1957. As of the 2020 census, Sylvan Springs had a population of 1,653. This area was damaged by an F5 tornado on April 8, 1998, including the First United Methodist Church of Sylvan Springs.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Area
- 8.7 sq mi
- Elevation
- 663 ft
- Area code
- 205
Sylvan Springs’s neighbors
2 towns share a border with Sylvan Springs.
| Town | AL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sylvan Springs | — | — | B+ | — | C | B |
| Birmingham | #164 | D− | B | D− | D | D |
| Maytown | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Sylvan Springs has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. Sylvan Springs reports no FBI crime data of its own. Maytown isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Sylvan Springs with a neighbor →
Questions about Sylvan Springs
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Sylvan Springs, AL expensive?
Not for the area. That is 2.9 years of the area's median household income ($71,498 across the Birmingham, AL metro area). Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades B+.