2024's Safest Cities in the US: What Are the Safest Cities?

Updated: October 22, 2024

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Despite progress overall, crime still impacts America’s communities. Crime and safety are intertwined with prosperity, income and economic opportunity. Crime is costly to individual victims, perpetrators, communities and society at large.

MoneyGeek’s annual analysis looks at the most recent crime statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to estimate the cost of crime in 302 cities with populations greater than 100,000 across the United States. The analysis pairs reported crime statistics with academic research on the societal costs of different types of crimes to estimate the cost of crime for each city. Using these same methods, MoneyGeek also found the safest small cities in the U.S. in a separate analysis.

Key Findings:
  • The cost of crime per capita in U.S. cities was $2,221 in 2022. Violent crime costs over $2,000 per capita, while property crime costs an average of $198. For context, violent crime accounted for 19% of all crime analyzed in this study, while property crime accounted for 82%.

  • Thousand Oaks, California, ranks as the safest city in the U.S. ($241 per capita); Birmingham, Alabama, ranks as the most dangerous city, with the highest per capita crime ($11,392).

  • In larger cities (those with populations greater than 300,000), the average cost of crime per capita is $3,325 — 74% more than the average for medium-sized cities ($1,906).

Safest Cities in the US

MoneyGeek ranked 302 cities with populations over 100,000 people from most to least safe in this analysis. The following summaries show the safest cities overall and the safest large cities from the analysis, along with their total and per capita cost of crime.

Thousand Oaks, California, leads as the safest city in the country, with a crime cost of only $241 per capita. Following closely are Fishers, Indiana, at $296 and Pembroke Pines, Florida, at $322, ranking them in the top three for low crime costs nationwide.

15 Safest Cities in America
City
Crime Cost per Capita

1.

Thousand Oaks, CA

$241

2.

Fishers, IN

$296

3.

Pembroke Pines, FL

$322

4.

Pearland, TX

$328

5.

Gilbert, AZ

$356

6.

Irvine, CA

$364

7.

Coral Springs, FL

$375

8.

Naperville, IL

$402

Are Larger Cities Safer in the US?

In our analysis, 10 out of the 15 most dangerous cities were large cities, while just one larger city (population of 300,000 or more) made the top 10 overall safest list. However, safer urban living can be found in some large cities. A standout is Irvine, California, where the crime cost per capita is $364, ranking as the No. 1 safest large city and the No. 6 safest city overall.

15 Safest Large Cities
City
Crime Cost per Capita

1.

Irvine, CA

$364

2.

Henderson, NV

$673

3.

Virginia Beach, VA

$773

4.

Honolulu, HI

$832

5.

El Paso, TX

$983

6.

San Diego, CA

$1,206

7.

Mesa, AZ

$1,404

8.

San Jose, CA

$1,472

City Safety in the US and the Cost of Crime

The direct economic costs of crime to individuals and society include victim medical and mental health care needs, damage to and loss of property and police and corrections costs. Aside from the imminent danger of crime, people living in higher crime areas see depressed home values and pay higher prices for crucial needs, including home insurance, renters insurance and auto insurance.

To assess the safest cities, MoneyGeek analyzed crime data, including violent crimes such as murder, rape and aggravated assault, and property crimes such as home burglary and motor vehicle theft. MoneyGeek calculated each city's cost of crime and ranked the cities based on the cost of crime per capita. Additionally, researchers have quantified how much more violent crimes cost a community than property crimes.

Although perceptions of safety are vital, crime statistics do not capture any city or community's whole story. "Behind all these averages that people like to cite about the crime rates in different communities are individual people and their decisions about how they choose to engage in their community," says Jesse Bruhn, Annenberg assistant professor of education and economics at Brown University who researches education issues and inner-city gang violence. "There's a lot more heterogeneity in these patterns that we just can't measure."

Despite genuine threats, Bruhn says, it may be surprising how safe people can feel in neighborhoods with high crime rates.

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Methodology

To rank the safest cities in the United States, MoneyGeek started with standardized crime statistics reported to the FBI from 2022, the latest year of available data. The population of each city was added to the analysis to determine crime rates per 100,000 people, and this information was also accessed via data provided by the FBI and the Census Bureau 1-year American Community Survey.

When cities with more than 100,000 people or more did not have data available in the FBI dataset, MoneyGeek conducted individualized research on standardized crime statistics for each specific city. Please note that 2022 data was limited for cities in Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania. MoneyGeek omitted any cities that did not report murder and rape.

MoneyGeek’s analysis includes 302 cities.

MoneyGeek relied on research by professors Kathryn McCollister and Michael French of the University of Miami and Hai Fang of the University of Colorado, Denver, to determine the cost of crime to society. MoneyGeek then integrated their findings into the broader dataset to better understand the societal cost of crime within individual cities.

Full Dataset

The data points presented are defined as follows:

  • Crime Cost per Capita: Societal cost of crime per resident.
  • Violent Crime Rate: Composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, per 100,000 residents.
  • Property Crime Rate: Includes burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft offenses per 100,000 residents.
  • Cost of Crime: Economic losses attributed to crime and its cost to society (individuals, community and nationally) in millions.
Rank
City
Crime Cost per Capita
Violent Crime Rate
Property Crime Rate
Total Crime Cost (in millions)

1

Thousand Oaks, CA

$241

58

1,106

$30,087

2

Fishers, IN

$296

78

750

$30,461

3

Pembroke Pines, FL

$322

107

1,509

$54,679

4

Pearland, TX

$328

93

1,709

$41,338

5

Gilbert, AZ

$356

117

1,017

$98,607

About Deb Gordon


Deb Gordon headshot

Deb Gordon, the co-founder and CEO of Umbra Health Advocacy, has held executive roles in health insurance and health care technology services. She authored a book titled “The Health Care Consumer’s Manifesto,” based on her research as a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Her works have been published on JAMA Network Open, Harvard Business Review blog, USA Today and RealClear Politics, among others.

Gordon is an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow and an Eisenhower Fellow. She was a 2011 Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree and a volunteer at MIT’s Delta V start-up accelerator, the Fierce Healthcare Innovation Awards. She earned her bioethics degree from Brown University and her MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.


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