Small Cities and Towns Are Getting Safer, While Violent Crime in Large Cities Is On the Rise

Updated: December 17, 2024

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Crime takes a toll on communities — not just emotionally but also economically. In addition to direct costs from loss of property, services for victims and policing and corrections, residents of higher-crime locales often pay higher rates on insurance.

Seeking respite in America’s smaller cities and towns has its appeal, but how much safer are small towns in reality? MoneyGeek analyzed crime statistics by quantifying the cost of crime and ranking 1,061 small cities and towns nationwide and in every state. Data on violent crimes such as murder, rape and aggravated assault are included, as well as property crimes such as burglaries and car theft. This analysis is conducted annually and follows MoneyGeek’s ranking of the safest cities in America.

KEY FINDINGS
  • The safest small city in the U.S. is Columbus, located in Indiana’s Bartholomew County, located roughly 40 miles south of Indianapolis.
  • The average cost of crime in small cities was $1,141 per capita in 2023. Violent crime costs over $1,000 per capita, while property crime costs an average of $133. For context, violent crime accounted for 14.3% of all crime analyzed in this study, while property crime accounted for 85.7%.
  • Overall, small cities and towns have 48% lower crime costs than larger cities.
  • Some small towns still bear costs of crime comparable to large cities. Pine Bluff, Arkansas, has a higher crime cost per capita than all of the 292 large cities analyzed. Similarly, New York City has a crime cost comparable to Juneau, Alaska and Grand Island, Nebraska.

6 of the 10 Safest Small Cities Are in the Northeast

More than 50 million Americans live in small cities and towns, but how safe is small-town America? MoneyGeek analyzed crime statistics and quantified the cost of those crimes to identify the safest and least safe small cities and towns — those with 30,000 to 100,000 residents.

Most of America's safest small cities and towns are in the Northeast, with six of the top ten cities in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. Cities and towns in Indiana, Utah and Ohio round out the rest of the top ten. The least safe towns are distributed primarily across the South. However, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, of the West, is at the top of the list.

15 Safest Small Cities and Towns in America
City
Crime Cost per Capita

1.

Columbus, IN

$22

2.

Wallingford, CT

$40

3.

Lone Peak, UT

$41

4.

Zionsville, IN

$52

5.

Monroe Township, Middlesex County, NJ

$55

6.

Yorktown Town, NY

$57

7.

Carmel Town, NY

$64

8.

Wallkill Town, NY

$68

Navigating the landscape of America’s small cities and towns reveals a diverse picture of safety. From Vestavia Hills, Alabama, with a crime cost per capita of $172, to Laramie, Wyoming, at $398, these areas represent the safest small locales for residents in each state.

The Safest Town in Each State
City
State
Crime Cost per Capita

Vestavia Hills, AL

Alabama

$172

Juneau, AK

Alaska

$1,553

San Luis, AZ

Arizona

$131

Bella Vista, AR

Arkansas

$340

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

California

$91

Windsor, CO

Colorado

$102

Wallingford, CT

Connecticut

$40

Newark, DE

Delaware

$510

Are Small Cities and Towns Safer Than Big Cities?

Lining up the data for large and small cities, MoneyGeek found that small cities and towns tend to be safer than large cities. In fact, the violent crime rate in large cities was nearly double that of small cities. However, the distribution of crime costs also shows a significant overlap between crime costs in large cities and smaller cities and towns. In that overlap, small and large cities may have the same per capita cost of crime.

The data show that many unsafe small cities and towns have crime levels comparable to those of their big-city counterparts.

For example, the per capita cost of crime in the least safe small and large cities is comparable. In Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the least safe small city, the per capita cost of crime is $12,929. That’s higher than in large cities like Memphis, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, where the per capita cost of crime is $11,582 and $10,397, respectively. Juneau, Alaska (pop. 31,400), and Grand Island, Nebraska (pop. 52,264) have a cost of crime per capita of $1,377 and $1,430, respectively, which is comparable to New York City (pop. 8.2 million), which has a crime cost per capita of $1,407.

While the safest places to live tend to be smaller, there is not a perfect correlation between population size and crime levels.

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Methodology

To rank the safest small cities and towns in the United States, MoneyGeek started with standardized crime statistics reported to the FBI from 2023, the latest year of available data. To determine crime rates per 100,000 people, population data accessed from the FBI was added to the analysis.  For the purposes of this analysis, MoneyGeek focused on cities with populations between 30,000 and 100,000 residents and included 1,061 cities in the ranking. Please note that 2023 data was not available for some small cities in Florida. When cities did not have data available in the FBI dataset, MoneyGeek conducted individualized research on standardized crime statistics for each specific city or town.

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. Their findings were integrated into the broader data set 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

Columbus, IN

$22

19

112

$1,130

2

Wallingford, CT

$40

9

476

$1,748

3

Lone Peak, UT

$41

13

279

$1,254

4

Zionsville, IN

$52

21

279

$1,704

5

Monroe Township, Middlesex County, NJ

$55

27

227

$2,647

6

Yorktown Town, NY

$57

20

675

$1,993

7

Carmel Town, NY

$64

32

307

$2,170

8

Wallkill Town, NY

$68

16

994

$2,154

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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