100 Safest Cities in the US | SafeWise (2024)

Home | News | 100 Safest Cities in the US

Despite FBI reports that crime across the US is declining, many Americans still feel that crime is on the rise. In fact, more than 7 out of 10 (73%) respondents to our State of Safety survey said they believe crime is increasing—and only 45% said they feel safe in their home state.

But there are still plenty of cities that remain relatively immune to the crime trends and headlines plaguing America’s largest metro areas. The 100 cities and towns that made our list this year bucked nationwide trends, showing a collective drop in both violent and property crime rates. Comparatively, the US violent crime rate held steady at 4.0 incidents per 1,000 people year over year, while the property crime rate rose 7%, from 19.3 to 20.7 incidents per 1,000.

Curious about cities in your state? Check out the safest cities in every state report.

Here are the 10 Safest Cities in America for 2024

See if your city made the full list.

In this report

• Crime rates
• Interesting findings
• The Safest Cities
• Methodology
• How to make a safe home anywhere
• How other cities compare
• How other states compare

America’s safest cities versus nationwide crime rates

When the FBI released their final crime numbers for 2022 (the last year for which complete data is available), we saw a rise in property crime for the first time since we've been tracking crime rates across the US. Violent crime rates remained steady year over year.

Nationwide, property crime offenses jumped 7.1% in 2022 compared to the prior year. But it's not all doom and gloom—an extended view shows a significant 24.9% decrease over 10 years. The national property crime rate is 20.7 incidents per 1,000 people, but America's safest cities come in at less than half of that with 9.9 incidents per 1,000.

Likewise, the safest cities in the US report far less violent crime than the nationwide average. Reporting a collective average of 1.1 violent incidents per 1,000 people, the cities that made our list are 73% below the nationwide violent crime rate of 4.0.

Compare the best home security systems

A closer look at the safest cities in the US

For the purposes of this report, the terms “dangerous” and “safest” refer explicitly to crime rates as calculated from FBI crime data—no other characterization of any community is implied or intended.

While there’s no one thing that indicates if a city will report higher or lower numbers of crimes, we’ve noticed some things that stand out about the 100 cities on our list. Here’s a rundown of some of the most interesting factors we’ve uncovered during our analysis.

Crime insights

• The violent crime rate among the safest cities is 1.0 incidents per 1,000 people—that’s 73% lower than the national rate of 4.0.
• The property crime rate among the safest cities is 9.9 incidents per 1,000—that’s 52% lower than the national rate of 20.7.
• 70 cities reported fewer than 100 total violent crimes and 29 reported fewer than 50.
• Greenwich, CT reported the fewest violent crimes, with just 13, and none of those were homicide.
• 47% of the cities had no murders reported, including 4 with populations over 100,000: Lakewood Township, NJ; Meridian, ID; Cary, NC; Frisco, TX.
• Jackson Township, NJ—our number one safest city in the US, reported the fewest total property crimes, with 265.
• 39 cities reported 50 or fewer burglaries, with Novi, MI coming in the lowest with 18.

Demographic insights

• 26 states are represented on this year's list, with Illinois boasting the most safe cities at 10.
• The average population of our 100 safest cities is 80,501.
• California is home to both the smallest and largest cities in our list: Poway has the smallest population at 48,011 and Irvine has the largest with 311,696.
• 4 states have 9 cities that made the list: California, Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas.
• Arizona and Massachusetts have the third-most cities on the list, with 6 each.

The 100 safest cities in America

Didn't find your city in the top 20?

We calculated crime rates for every city in the country that met our population threshold of 25,000. See how the remaining cities ranked in the list below. If you want to see the safest smaller towns in the US, that list will be published soon.

NOTE: If you don’t see your city on the list, it means that it was below the population threshold or didn’t submit a complete crime report to the FBI in 2022, the last year for which complete data was available at time of publication.

How we ranked the safest cities in America

To identify the 100 safest cities in the country, we analyzed FBI crime report statistics and population data. The FBI data is from 2022 (the most recent year for which complete data was available as of publication). Our rankings were based solely on per capita crime data; no other factors were included.

Population thresholds

We established a minimum population threshold of 25,000. Cities that fell below the population threshold were excluded, along with cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI.

Crime rates

Our rankings are based on both violent and property crime numbers. We looked at the number of reported violent crimes (aggravated assault, murder, rape, and robbery) in each city and the number of reported property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft).

Arson is excluded from the FBI’s property crime rates, so we excluded it as well.

To level the playing field, we calculated the rate of crimes per 1,000 people in each city. This makes it easier to directly compare the likelihood of these crimes occurring in cities with vastly different populations. (By comparison, the FBI uses the number of crimes per 100,000 people to calculate its rates.)

Both violent and property crime numbers were weighted equally. That means that a city with no violent crimes reported could end up lower on the list due to a higher property crime rate, and vice versa. We also standardized violent and property crime for each state before weighting.

Consult our full methodology to learn more about how we rank the Safest Cities.

Over 6 in 10 Americans surveyed don't have a home security system, despite over 50% of all burglaries being residential. Unfortunately, a majority of people who have a security system added it after they had a break-in. One of the best ways to stop a burglary before it happens—and get immediate help if a break-in is detected—is to add a monitored home security system.

Find the safest cities in each state

Related articles on SafeWise

• 10 Most Dangerous Metro Cities in the US
• 10 Safest Metro Cities in the US
• 50 Safest College Towns
• 50 Safest Cities to Raise a Child
• The State of Safety in America

Sources

FBI: Crime Data Explorer, Accessed April 11, 2024.

US Census Bureau, “QuickFacts,” Accessed April 11, 2024.

Recent Articles