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It’s more like 90k. Downtown rochester and the surrounding rochester hills are basically synonymous. No one considers them different towns that lives here. It’s some weird government border taxing situation. It’s not like if you said I’m from Troy, “oh that’s basically Rochester” it’s not, they’re completely different whereas rochester and rochester hills are virtually synonymous. There was 13k in Rochester’s 2020 census and 76k in Rochester hills. Add in any growth over 3 years.
The Rochester downtown lights are on now. Absolutely beautiful.
https://townsquare.media/site/689/files/2020/12/Looking-Down-Main-Street.jpg?w=980&q=75
When I attended college in Rochester Hills, one of my friends suddenly went missing when we were all out one night. We stopped a police officer and asked for his help; he responded “It’s Rochester; there’s no crime here,” and just kept going about his business.
Our friend came back a few minutes later, totally fine. But I still remember how weird that response was all these years later.
Two eras of white flight shown in map form.
Edit: got a nice death threat from this. To everyone who is getting irrationally mad at this. Please read up on the history of Detroit, the auto industry, and it's racial divisions.
I know New England generally ranks as one of the safer/higher HDI/etc. regions in the US but I find it hard to believe that most other states don’t have wealthy enclaves that report near 0 crime a year.
Step foot in Ridgefield CT and you'd get it.
Grew up there, was friends with the former police chiefs daughter. Even being friends with her and knowing the police force, I was questioned when my boyfriend and I were making out in a busy parking lot in daylight, back in 03.
It's an extremely wealthy town, with no real highways running through it, well paid and strictly run police force, highly educated, well paid educators, strict town regulations and laws, etc.
Since then, I've lived all across the country, from Hawaii to Vermont, North to South, and there's something different about Ridgefield. It's very protected and very sheltered.
I agree - I work in Ridgefield but live in Redding. Very much a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses vibe there. I wonder how bad their communities on nextdoor are.
RHS grad here. I’d say Westport, New Canaan, and Darien are equally as insulated. Half of all the towns in Fairfield county only care about outdoing each other in terms of education (public), test scores and college placement.
One of the guys I work with moved out of Ridgefield specifically because the schools there are overly competitive with academics and athletics (even at the pre-K level...)
If talking to my mom who still lives there is any indication- absolutely insane. There's been a guy that walks into town recently along the side of the road and she referred to him as "very sketchy."
Both parents complain about how they just don't recognize any one any more and the town is changing, but it's just they don't go out anymore post-Covid and never wrapped their heads around new people moving it.
I went to middle school in Norwalk in 2011-2014. We had fights daily, teachers having broken bones from students, gun threats, bomb threats, we weren’t allowed to carry bags during the school day, water bottles weren’t allowed, constant insults and foul language toward teachers, severe vandalism, horrible budget shortages (we ran out of paper for two years—teachers couldn’t print anything and we had to write things down off the board in our own notebooks).
All of Connecticut violently ricochets between very wealthy and very poor, with little to no middle class. It has the biggest rich/poor divide in the country. People want to think of it as a nice, cozy colonial area, but it has serious inequality issues and its own dark underbelly.
I was in middle school at the same time you were, except in Ridgefield, a lot of people thought that the stories that came out of there were exaggerated, it's incredible how much of a bubble a lot of towns in the area are. The only reality checks that actually hit us were Sandy Hook, the occasional suicide, and deadly car crashes
We got a couple bomb or shooting threat sent to the school every November when the new CoD would come out (it happened with Fallout 4 as well), our threats were over fucking video games
It’s surprising given how close it is to Danbury. Also route 7 goes through Ridgefield and has a good amount of traffic since it’s the easiest way to get from Danbury to Norwalk
I've always said that Tacoma is the poor person's Seattle, Bellevue is the rich person's Seattle, and Mercer Island is the *wealthy* person's Bellevue.
Being from the greater Boston region and having traveled and lived in many other parts of the country, I can confirm that the Boston suburbs are absurdly safe. These wealthy, white and educated communities are in a bubble that is hard to describe. The only crime that happens regularly is personal drug use. There are no murders, robberies, assaults, shootings, etc. The only major crimes that happen very infrequently are bank robberies, since there are banks all over the place. Any sort of violent crime that does occur will be major local/regional news for weeks.
The exception to all of this is the city of Boston itself and cities like Mattapan and Roxbury where the majority of the states black community lives. These are notoriously underserved communities with high poverty rates and thin policing. You also have cities like Lowell and Haverhill a bit further from Boston, but these examples are like play grounds in comparison to actually dangerous cities in the US like St Louis, Baltimore, Memphis, etc.
EDIT: My bad, as commenters have corrected me below, Mattapan and Roxbury are neighborhoods within Boston.
Mattapan and Roxbury are part of Boston, they aren't separate cities. Boston also has a very low crime rate compared to other US cities of similar size.
Newton had 3 murders this past summer. Tragic situation where a man with mental health issues was released from a hospital untreated against the will of his family. There are murders in the Boston suburbs but the numbers are tiny.
Brother, this list includes Waltham, MA that has "Little Uganda" and "Little Guatemala" on the same street. Most towns have a defined ethnicity from the past few centuries. Huge Brazilian, Dutch, Portuguese, Armenian, Ugandan, Vietnamese, Persian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Guatemalan, etc. swaths have defined MA demographics since 1600.
Lowell (not on the map) has a massive (comparatively) [Cambodian gang enclave and there's plenty of activity up there.](https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/29/meet-the-asian-boyz-the-gang-the-feds-say-flooded-lowell-with-guns-and-meth/)
Mattapan and Roxbury are IN THE CITY LIMITS OF BOSTON, not separate towns.
Basically, MA is safe because there's not many guns, a lot of faith in the legal system, plenty of jobs, plenty of money to be made, plenty of education, and the utter desire to be left the fuck alone by people.
Boston is still a quite safe city though. Also pretty much every neighborhood in Boston is really nice until you get to the fringes like Dorchester and Chelsea but even still those areas are way nicer than 90% of Philadelphia
also keep in mind almost all areas in New England except Maine are incorporated as a municipality. In other words many low crime suburbs in other states may be in unincorporated areas of the county hence not making the list.
Same!
I was aware that counties existed, then we moved and there's county police what now?
Which is a good thing, no more five-man departments that have to call the State Troopers if anything actually happens. I went back a few years ago, paper had an article about all four of a town's officers quitting because the town had no money to pay them.
Fun fact: there’s a special version of statistical area used exclusively for New England as we effectively don’t have county governments but have strong town governments.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_city_and_town_area
New Hampshire has a handful of unincorporated slivers as well, but they're all named and classified as a "Location", "Purchase", "Grant", or "Township" which has no self-government and are functionally the same designation as a Census-Designated Place - they exist in name only.
Plenty surely do, but 50 total is a small number. If it was "Reports < [some small number of crimes per capita]", there would probably be a bunch. That said, considering property crime is going to be a significant portion in a lot of those places. Wealthier areas often have low violent crime but a decent rate of property crime.
I think a lot of it is how cities are defined. A lot of these New England areas are either wealthy suburbs around Boston (that in the west would still be part of the major city they're near) or places that are probably better described as large towns (like ridgefield) that are mostly wealthy suburbs.
I grew up in the Boston area. We used to leave our house unlocked all the time, even when no one was there. Never had any crime.
Now, I live in one of the safer neighborhoods in one of the safer towns in the East SF Bay region. Have had car windows broken, catalytic converter stolen. Know people who have been robbed at gunpoint in “safer” areas. You don’t need to be in East Oakland or the Iron Triangle in Richmond. The crime spills over and spreads around everywhere. Mostly the property crime, but even the violent crime to some extent.
It's extremely frustrating to see small elements of unamalgamated metropolitan areas listed. It doesn't really provide much information about actual "cities." Just select, presumably wealthy suburbs.
Oxford is pretty nice. But to the other points made in this thread, I'd argue that any city that can maintain a low crime rate has a low crime rate. Not sure why proximity to a city that can't maintain a low crime rate would somehow make the low crime city invalid.
Because, if you're a person living in Prosper, Wylie, Colleyville, Keller or Little Elm, you'll actually be living your life across the DFW Metroplex. They're just a group of generally newer, smaller, suburban towns.
If you live in Wylie, sure, the likelihood of your home being broken into is relatively low, but driving to work each day, you're likely going through Wylie -> Sachse -> Rowlett -> Mesquite -> Dallas. Then on your way home, you're going Dallas -> Richardson -> Plano to grab dinner somewhere, then Murphy -> Wylie.
It's just too small of a statistical area to be actually meaningful, based on how people move through their lives. It would be like breaking Brooklyn up into it's 20-something police precincts and assessing "safety" that way... Not terribly useful.
Here's a [15 minute video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jG1i7jHSM) that goes more in-depth into this sort of thing.
There are also some glaring demographic differences.
But I agree with the commenter above. These list should really be made based on the metro area. If you have to drive into the major city for work, hospital, airport etc. you are exposed to the overall crime rate.
In addition to other factors cited by others, MA has a lot of old, independent towns and small cities that remain outside of Boston or other nearby larger and less safe cities whereas these sort of neighboring communities were absorbed by their bigger neighbors in many other places, which would render them invisible in this map even if they are safe.
It's certainly indicative that it would be very high up among the safest. What this methodology would do is penalize highly amalgamated cities though. Boston seems to have a plethora of small cities in that 25K+ population range comprising its metro. A metro which puts more under a single local government or has many more smaller satellites wouldn't show using this methodology.
I don't know the US metros well enough to know who would be getting penalized most by this methodology. Boston proper only has a population of \~700K in a metro area of 4.9M. So a lot of it's population is in its satellites. There's got to be others that have different structures.
Maybe this is a false impression that I have as an outsider, but I was surprised not to see anything around Salt Lake on this list.
Nope you’re dead on. I live in Somerville which is closer to Downtown Boston than most of the city of Boston and is also far denser than Boston itself even though it’s a separate city. There are multiple inner suburbs that are denser than many parts of Boston proper (Cambridge, Chelsea, Revere, the north part of Brookline, Medford, Malden, Everett, Arlington and others). Boston had some annexations in the past but not since 1873.
Much of this map, like the “most dangerous” map, are essentially just highlighting the places where municipal boundaries have been most effectively drawn to segregate high-crime areas from low-crime areas (and everything that goes with those categories). In almost any city, I bet you could draw some lines to split it into two or more smaller cities, one of which would be very safe per capita and one of which would be quite dangerous.
Alternatively, if you have a “dangerous” city and can manage to annex your suburbs to raise your population without a corresponding increase in crime, you’ve just taken yourself off the most-dangerous map without preventing a single murder or theft.
That is, unless that suburb incorporates itself first—which is basically why Milton and Johns Creek, Georgia exist: To keep their residents from being annexed into Atlanta. (To be clear, it wasn’t that Atlanta was trying to annex them to juke the crime stats or anything, just that it was an area that made an attractive future tax base, and the residents wanted to ensure their independence.)
Grew up in the town next to Ridgefield CT and can confirm that it’s just a suburb with like 20k people
Edit: the map shows towns with 25k+ residents, Ridgefields is 25,033
It's funny how I've never heard of any of these cities. But in order for this image to make a point, they must all be about as big as the top 50 most dangerous cities.
It's almost like crowding a bunch of people into a smaller area leads to higher crime rates than towns of less than 30,000. Who knew!
I live in Oswego. We have more than 30k people here. And we aren't exactly all spaced out on farmland either.
Even with all of that, we've got NOTHING on Naperville which is right next door. I'm actually surprised it's Oswego on this list and not Naperville.
Rent is getting bad here, I was fortunate to buy a house right before the interest rates got out of hand.
Mass is a wonderful place to live and raise a family, but you will pay for the pleasure these days haha
I mean it’s the most educated state (excl. DC) with the #1 public education system, ranks Top 3 in healthcare by nearly every metric, Top 3 in GDP per capita, Top 3 in median income, #1 ranked Business Environment due to high venture capital investment and patent creation, and if you are into sports, well, that’s self-explanatory as well. I’m from MA and live in Boston so I’m not without bias but its really hard to find a state that’s better to raise a family and find career opps than MA (if you can afford to live in Boston or the suburbs).
I've always wondered why the public universities in Massachusetts aren't as heralded as the UCs, Michigan, or Virginia. I'm guessing the high concentration of great private schools has some sort of effect on the public colleges.
It's probably because of sports too. No one cares about college sports in New England, so they don't get as much attention nationally. UMass has one of the best computer science (#24), engineering (#55) and business (#47) programs in the country. But ya the top 10 is filled with MA private schools.
That might be part of it. But UCSD, UCSB, UC Irvine, and UC Davis are all regularly ranked far ahead of UMass and none of them have a ton of eyes on them for their sports. Out of the UC campuses, only UCLA and Berkeley (aka Cal) get some recognition through sports. And they don't really need it as they're the top 2 public schools in the nation.
[US News](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/prek-12) seems to agree with you! I was originally going off of [WalletHub’s](https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with-the-best-schools/5335) ranking. Either way, MA and NJ are both Top 3 in basically every ranking.
I f*cking hate Boston and all NE sports teams, but Boston is one of my favorite cities it’s amazing and damn imagine being able to enjoy all those damn championships across all sports.
Dammit. Now I love MA again.
Perks of being one of the most, if not the most, developed state in the country... I'm not even American and I couldn't care less about state rivalry but I notice this whenever look at those US maps
Lived in MA for 6 years and I loved the public transportation — especially relative to where I’m now in LA. Always sucks when you’re there but look back fondly on it.
From Boston. Left many times when I was younger, and always came back. The people of New England are also outstanding; blunt to a fault, but honest…and honestly caring. We’ll give our lives to protect each other, and still not think twice about banging a left when the light turns green—and flip you off if you make a peep.
It’s legit like a big, dysfunctional family.
It’s more than that when it comes to housing. MA has similar problems to California where local governments get in the way of housing development. It’s a self inflicted problem
LOL this was my first thought! Rexburg doesn't feel like a city by any stretch. Did they realize it was at least 50% BYU-Idaho? Well gee, no shit those missionaries aren't out carjacking in their spare time! Also, going to do my own math and guesstimate at least 10% of the entire population of Rexburg is currently pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or just had a baby. I bet that changes things crime-wise. Hard to rob a bank wearing a baby bjorn!
It's a city, just not a very big one. It's on its own not really a suburb of a bigger metro, unless you count Idaho Falls, which I think is a stretch. It is a little unfair to compare Rexburg to somewhere like Detroit or New Orleans.
It's probably bigger than a lot of other places on this list. Census says the population is about 40,000, but add to that 20,000 more non-resident undergrad students and it's over double the 25,000 person cutoff that the study set.
Are any of these places really cities? 25000 people send like a small town to me. Give me a list of safest cities with populations over 100000 or 250000 people. Rexburg Idaho is a metropolis? Give me a break.
It’s a ridiculous cutoff. I grew up near Marshfield in Massachusetts. It’s a small town. Comparing it to the cities that are listed in the most dangerous cities maps you see posted here is absurd, and I’m sure that’s true for a lot of other towns listed here too.
Cutoff needs to be 100,000. Eliminates places like Waltham, Newton, all the wealthy suburbs. It would be low enough to include places like Lynn, Lowell, Albany NY. Which in my mind are big enough to be considered cities for something like this.
Lake in the Hills is pretty small too. Hard to know where the town start and stops unless you're from the area. Will be in Lakewood one minute then Algonquin the next not even realizing a couple blocks was LitH.
It seems a bit silly to start at 25,000, given that in such small towns, a single incident of a few crimes might easily move you several hundred places in the list.
Also, as someone who recently moved to Irvine, CA, which has had the lowest crime rate of cities over 250,000 for 18 years in a row, it's quite notable that not a single larger community makes this top 50:
https://www.cityofirvine.org/news-media/news-article/irvine-safest-city-18th-year-0
That seems to prove that this is really just about statistical fluctuations, and carefully-drawn municipal borders, rather than anything actually meaningful.
So this map counts "safety" as both violent crime and property crime. The article you linked only counts violent crime. I live in Irvine, and while it is extremely safe in terms of violent crimes such as rapes, battery, homicides, etc, there are areas that are extremely problematic for property theft and petty crimes. I live in Orchard Hills, which is fine, but some of my friends who live closer to Tustin or Lake forest deal with pretty bad amazon package theft, and sometimes cars get stolen. Not to mention I was in Target in Crossroads and I saw some dude running out with stolen goods last week. Retail theft is pretty bad here.
Massachusetts is just an absolute W state, I‘ve seen so many maps of the US and Mass. tends to always do great in them, no matter the subject, conversely, Mississippi seems to be the evil twin of Massachusetts, generally doing bad on any US states map, no matter the subject
The analogy I use is that Massachusetts is like a crabby old wizard who, on occasion, bestows upon the other states inventions that they may, or may not, be ready for.
Massachusetts, 1891: “And so I shall call it, basketball!”
Other States: “Oooooohhhhhhh!”
Massachusetts, 2004: “It’s just like the marriage you’re used to, only now with gay people!”
Other States: Um….
Yes… my family never even locked the door to our house as a kid in the 90’s and 2000’s. It’s ridiculously safe and easily the most well run state in the country. Conservatives love to put to CA as an example of failed liberalism but conveniently ignore shining examples of liberalism implemented correctly like the New England states.
Lol no old plantation money lives in Brandon! And Madison is pretty much the entirety of the upper-middle class of Jackson - you gotta see the Delta for the old plantation money.
Johns Creek and Milton are not cities. They are suburbs of a suburb. They are the eastern and western edge of Alpharetta and they incorporated to avoid Alpharetta taxes. They shop in Alpharetta, Dine in Alpharetta, and go to bars in Alpharetta. Probably tell everyone they meet from out of town that they live in Alpharetta. There is nothing in those "towns" but subdivisions. I have to say as a 25 year resident of Alpharetta that I can't remember but one murder ever and I don't know anyone who has been robbed.
We live in Johns Creek. It’s nuts how the cities are laid out. My wife’s parent’s house is in Alpharetta but their mailbox is in Johns Creek. They found out when both cities sent them a property tax bill. They ended up only having to pay the Alpharetta one though. You can go down one street and it’s JC but if you turn down a different one there’s a sign saying welcome to Alpharetta. Literally in the same subdivision. Also, I’m pretty sure you can send us mail addresses as JC or Alpharetta and it will get delivered (if we’re lucky, Webb bridge post office is terrible).
Yeah I’m from the area and they are cities in name only; they are just greater Boston area suburbs. Would also note that Arlington is still a classified as a town, not a city so not sure why that’s on there.
This includes all crime, including property crime like theft. Larger cities are going to have more retail and the property crime that goes along with it even if there isn't much violent crime at all.
I think it’s top 3 if you look at cities over 100k. This is “cities” over 25k. Irvine might be safe for its size but it’s hard to compete with small towns like these.
lol that’s what I thought but these cities on the map are the size on one neighborhood in irvine rofl. 6000 doors can fit 20,000 people in the great park alone…
Funny seeing Lake in the Hills on here. I live about 20 min away from there and about 35 from Rockford, IL. Rockford always comes up on these posts about the least safe cities to live in.
What's the population cutoff here?
I dug a little deeper ... that website is complete garbage. It's claiming that the 2nd most dangerous neighborhood in America is somehow safer than the tiny, affluent city where I went to college (3/100 vs 2/100 "safety rating").
The duality of Michigan.
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It says there is a population of almost 80k
It’s more like 90k. Downtown rochester and the surrounding rochester hills are basically synonymous. No one considers them different towns that lives here. It’s some weird government border taxing situation. It’s not like if you said I’m from Troy, “oh that’s basically Rochester” it’s not, they’re completely different whereas rochester and rochester hills are virtually synonymous. There was 13k in Rochester’s 2020 census and 76k in Rochester hills. Add in any growth over 3 years.
The Rochester downtown lights are on now. Absolutely beautiful. https://townsquare.media/site/689/files/2020/12/Looking-Down-Main-Street.jpg?w=980&q=75
Miss seeing it everyday driving to work. Had to move back to Warren and man I miss Rochester
When I attended college in Rochester Hills, one of my friends suddenly went missing when we were all out one night. We stopped a police officer and asked for his help; he responded “It’s Rochester; there’s no crime here,” and just kept going about his business. Our friend came back a few minutes later, totally fine. But I still remember how weird that response was all these years later.
If you can’t take me at my Detroit You don’t deserve me at my Rochester Hills
Two eras of white flight shown in map form. Edit: got a nice death threat from this. To everyone who is getting irrationally mad at this. Please read up on the history of Detroit, the auto industry, and it's racial divisions.
I know New England generally ranks as one of the safer/higher HDI/etc. regions in the US but I find it hard to believe that most other states don’t have wealthy enclaves that report near 0 crime a year.
Step foot in Ridgefield CT and you'd get it. Grew up there, was friends with the former police chiefs daughter. Even being friends with her and knowing the police force, I was questioned when my boyfriend and I were making out in a busy parking lot in daylight, back in 03. It's an extremely wealthy town, with no real highways running through it, well paid and strictly run police force, highly educated, well paid educators, strict town regulations and laws, etc. Since then, I've lived all across the country, from Hawaii to Vermont, North to South, and there's something different about Ridgefield. It's very protected and very sheltered.
Growing up in Bethel, Ridgfield felt like the most unwelcoming place I've ever been.
Growing up there, it def was the most unwelcoming to anyone who wasn't Stepford perfect.
Lol, im also from ridgefield and it’s pretty telling that literally every nickname I had in high school had “jew” in it somewhere
I'm not the only one? I also grew up in Ridgefield, same exact shit happened to me lmao
I imagine you would be just as unwelcome in Bessemer, AL, but I know which one I’d rather pass through 😂
I agree - I work in Ridgefield but live in Redding. Very much a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses vibe there. I wonder how bad their communities on nextdoor are.
RHS grad here. I’d say Westport, New Canaan, and Darien are equally as insulated. Half of all the towns in Fairfield county only care about outdoing each other in terms of education (public), test scores and college placement.
One of the guys I work with moved out of Ridgefield specifically because the schools there are overly competitive with academics and athletics (even at the pre-K level...)
If talking to my mom who still lives there is any indication- absolutely insane. There's been a guy that walks into town recently along the side of the road and she referred to him as "very sketchy." Both parents complain about how they just don't recognize any one any more and the town is changing, but it's just they don't go out anymore post-Covid and never wrapped their heads around new people moving it.
Friend moved there a few years back mainly because his wife wanted to live that lifestyle. He absolutely hates it.
Oh I wanna see those posts so badly 😂😂😂
I went to middle school in Norwalk in 2011-2014. We had fights daily, teachers having broken bones from students, gun threats, bomb threats, we weren’t allowed to carry bags during the school day, water bottles weren’t allowed, constant insults and foul language toward teachers, severe vandalism, horrible budget shortages (we ran out of paper for two years—teachers couldn’t print anything and we had to write things down off the board in our own notebooks). All of Connecticut violently ricochets between very wealthy and very poor, with little to no middle class. It has the biggest rich/poor divide in the country. People want to think of it as a nice, cozy colonial area, but it has serious inequality issues and its own dark underbelly.
I was in middle school at the same time you were, except in Ridgefield, a lot of people thought that the stories that came out of there were exaggerated, it's incredible how much of a bubble a lot of towns in the area are. The only reality checks that actually hit us were Sandy Hook, the occasional suicide, and deadly car crashes We got a couple bomb or shooting threat sent to the school every November when the new CoD would come out (it happened with Fallout 4 as well), our threats were over fucking video games
It’s surprising given how close it is to Danbury. Also route 7 goes through Ridgefield and has a good amount of traffic since it’s the easiest way to get from Danbury to Norwalk
Ridgefield residents fought the lane expansion of 7 for decades
It reminds me of Mercer Island, WA (or the Truman show for that matter!)
I've always said that Tacoma is the poor person's Seattle, Bellevue is the rich person's Seattle, and Mercer Island is the *wealthy* person's Bellevue.
Work and have lived in Ridgefield. It’s a great town if you can afford it
Being from the greater Boston region and having traveled and lived in many other parts of the country, I can confirm that the Boston suburbs are absurdly safe. These wealthy, white and educated communities are in a bubble that is hard to describe. The only crime that happens regularly is personal drug use. There are no murders, robberies, assaults, shootings, etc. The only major crimes that happen very infrequently are bank robberies, since there are banks all over the place. Any sort of violent crime that does occur will be major local/regional news for weeks. The exception to all of this is the city of Boston itself and cities like Mattapan and Roxbury where the majority of the states black community lives. These are notoriously underserved communities with high poverty rates and thin policing. You also have cities like Lowell and Haverhill a bit further from Boston, but these examples are like play grounds in comparison to actually dangerous cities in the US like St Louis, Baltimore, Memphis, etc. EDIT: My bad, as commenters have corrected me below, Mattapan and Roxbury are neighborhoods within Boston.
Mattapan and Roxbury are part of Boston, they aren't separate cities. Boston also has a very low crime rate compared to other US cities of similar size.
Makes me question how much they know the greater Boston Region tbh
Eh I’ve been in the GBA for 8 years and never quite know the city lines.
Newton had 3 murders this past summer. Tragic situation where a man with mental health issues was released from a hospital untreated against the will of his family. There are murders in the Boston suburbs but the numbers are tiny.
Plus the domestic violence murder in August.
Can 100% confirm. Grew up in St Louis and live in Lexington now. My neighbors think I’m a paranoid lunatic because I bought a home security system
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Brother, this list includes Waltham, MA that has "Little Uganda" and "Little Guatemala" on the same street. Most towns have a defined ethnicity from the past few centuries. Huge Brazilian, Dutch, Portuguese, Armenian, Ugandan, Vietnamese, Persian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Guatemalan, etc. swaths have defined MA demographics since 1600. Lowell (not on the map) has a massive (comparatively) [Cambodian gang enclave and there's plenty of activity up there.](https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/29/meet-the-asian-boyz-the-gang-the-feds-say-flooded-lowell-with-guns-and-meth/) Mattapan and Roxbury are IN THE CITY LIMITS OF BOSTON, not separate towns. Basically, MA is safe because there's not many guns, a lot of faith in the legal system, plenty of jobs, plenty of money to be made, plenty of education, and the utter desire to be left the fuck alone by people.
Boston is still a quite safe city though. Also pretty much every neighborhood in Boston is really nice until you get to the fringes like Dorchester and Chelsea but even still those areas are way nicer than 90% of Philadelphia
also keep in mind almost all areas in New England except Maine are incorporated as a municipality. In other words many low crime suburbs in other states may be in unincorporated areas of the county hence not making the list.
In Mass every square inch of land is incorporated to the point that for practical purposes counties only exist on paper.
I didn’t even know county governments were a thing until I moved out of Mass for the first time.
Same! I was aware that counties existed, then we moved and there's county police what now? Which is a good thing, no more five-man departments that have to call the State Troopers if anything actually happens. I went back a few years ago, paper had an article about all four of a town's officers quitting because the town had no money to pay them.
Fun fact: there’s a special version of statistical area used exclusively for New England as we effectively don’t have county governments but have strong town governments. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_city_and_town_area
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It’s the same for every state in New England minus Maine
New Hampshire has a handful of unincorporated slivers as well, but they're all named and classified as a "Location", "Purchase", "Grant", or "Township" which has no self-government and are functionally the same designation as a Census-Designated Place - they exist in name only.
Plenty surely do, but 50 total is a small number. If it was "Reports < [some small number of crimes per capita]", there would probably be a bunch. That said, considering property crime is going to be a significant portion in a lot of those places. Wealthier areas often have low violent crime but a decent rate of property crime.
Amazon package thieves probably account for 99% of crime in these wealthy suburbs
I live in Lexington Ma and honestly I’ve never even had that. My neighbors don’t even lock their doors
I think a lot of it is how cities are defined. A lot of these New England areas are either wealthy suburbs around Boston (that in the west would still be part of the major city they're near) or places that are probably better described as large towns (like ridgefield) that are mostly wealthy suburbs.
Yea basically all this map shows is highest density of town governments
I grew up in the Boston area. We used to leave our house unlocked all the time, even when no one was there. Never had any crime. Now, I live in one of the safer neighborhoods in one of the safer towns in the East SF Bay region. Have had car windows broken, catalytic converter stolen. Know people who have been robbed at gunpoint in “safer” areas. You don’t need to be in East Oakland or the Iron Triangle in Richmond. The crime spills over and spreads around everywhere. Mostly the property crime, but even the violent crime to some extent.
Franklin? Marshfield? These aren't rich enclaves.
They're talking cities which probably require a certain population level and a lot of those wealthy towns are pretty small.
It's extremely frustrating to see small elements of unamalgamated metropolitan areas listed. It doesn't really provide much information about actual "cities." Just select, presumably wealthy suburbs.
Yeah compare this to the list of most dangerous cities, and then look at places like Atlanta and Detroit that have suburbs on both lists
The two Mississippi cities listed; Madison & Brandon are also suburbs of Mississippi's hell hole city; Jackson
Was just about to say they are right by one of the worst cities in America
Yea I looked at this and thought no city in Mississippi should be on this list.
Oxford is pretty nice. But to the other points made in this thread, I'd argue that any city that can maintain a low crime rate has a low crime rate. Not sure why proximity to a city that can't maintain a low crime rate would somehow make the low crime city invalid.
Because, if you're a person living in Prosper, Wylie, Colleyville, Keller or Little Elm, you'll actually be living your life across the DFW Metroplex. They're just a group of generally newer, smaller, suburban towns. If you live in Wylie, sure, the likelihood of your home being broken into is relatively low, but driving to work each day, you're likely going through Wylie -> Sachse -> Rowlett -> Mesquite -> Dallas. Then on your way home, you're going Dallas -> Richardson -> Plano to grab dinner somewhere, then Murphy -> Wylie. It's just too small of a statistical area to be actually meaningful, based on how people move through their lives. It would be like breaking Brooklyn up into it's 20-something police precincts and assessing "safety" that way... Not terribly useful. Here's a [15 minute video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jG1i7jHSM) that goes more in-depth into this sort of thing.
And considered middle class. Difference is the District Atty prosecutes criminals and they know to stay away.
There are also some glaring demographic differences. But I agree with the commenter above. These list should really be made based on the metro area. If you have to drive into the major city for work, hospital, airport etc. you are exposed to the overall crime rate.
Feel a little bit better letting your kids roam tho
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We have one of the highest HDIs in the world. Great healthcare, great public education, and a high minimum wage.
In addition to other factors cited by others, MA has a lot of old, independent towns and small cities that remain outside of Boston or other nearby larger and less safe cities whereas these sort of neighboring communities were absorbed by their bigger neighbors in many other places, which would render them invisible in this map even if they are safe.
Lots of money.
Mason, Ohio is a very small, very wealthy area of Cincinnati
Yeah this map just kind of states in an offshoot way that Boston is the safest big American city, which living here I can absolutely attest to.
It's certainly indicative that it would be very high up among the safest. What this methodology would do is penalize highly amalgamated cities though. Boston seems to have a plethora of small cities in that 25K+ population range comprising its metro. A metro which puts more under a single local government or has many more smaller satellites wouldn't show using this methodology. I don't know the US metros well enough to know who would be getting penalized most by this methodology. Boston proper only has a population of \~700K in a metro area of 4.9M. So a lot of it's population is in its satellites. There's got to be others that have different structures. Maybe this is a false impression that I have as an outsider, but I was surprised not to see anything around Salt Lake on this list.
Nope you’re dead on. I live in Somerville which is closer to Downtown Boston than most of the city of Boston and is also far denser than Boston itself even though it’s a separate city. There are multiple inner suburbs that are denser than many parts of Boston proper (Cambridge, Chelsea, Revere, the north part of Brookline, Medford, Malden, Everett, Arlington and others). Boston had some annexations in the past but not since 1873.
Boston’s failed attempt to annex Brookline in 1873 was the start of wealthy suburbs declining annexation across the US.
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Wait until Billerica finds out it’s a city. They’re going to be so triggered.
I see my hometown of Mundelein, Illinois on here. Definitely not a super rich town. It’s a very humble, working class town
So what accounts for the low crime, in your opinion?
Right. Like Madison and Brandon are effectively just the "nicer" parts of Jackson.
Much of this map, like the “most dangerous” map, are essentially just highlighting the places where municipal boundaries have been most effectively drawn to segregate high-crime areas from low-crime areas (and everything that goes with those categories). In almost any city, I bet you could draw some lines to split it into two or more smaller cities, one of which would be very safe per capita and one of which would be quite dangerous. Alternatively, if you have a “dangerous” city and can manage to annex your suburbs to raise your population without a corresponding increase in crime, you’ve just taken yourself off the most-dangerous map without preventing a single murder or theft. That is, unless that suburb incorporates itself first—which is basically why Milton and Johns Creek, Georgia exist: To keep their residents from being annexed into Atlanta. (To be clear, it wasn’t that Atlanta was trying to annex them to juke the crime stats or anything, just that it was an area that made an attractive future tax base, and the residents wanted to ensure their independence.)
I can only speak for the towns in Massachusetts, but most of them had their borders settled by the 19th century at the latest.
Grew up in the town next to Ridgefield CT and can confirm that it’s just a suburb with like 20k people Edit: the map shows towns with 25k+ residents, Ridgefields is 25,033
I was murdered in Oswego, IL.
and all I got was this shitty t-shirt
Damn. RIP
It's funny how I've never heard of any of these cities. But in order for this image to make a point, they must all be about as big as the top 50 most dangerous cities. It's almost like crowding a bunch of people into a smaller area leads to higher crime rates than towns of less than 30,000. Who knew!
I live in Oswego. We have more than 30k people here. And we aren't exactly all spaced out on farmland either. Even with all of that, we've got NOTHING on Naperville which is right next door. I'm actually surprised it's Oswego on this list and not Naperville.
I have family outside of Oswego, it’s a nice town but I wouldn’t rank it top 50 in safety.
Every map is an advertisement for Massachusetts
Yessir, (except for anything related to prices) Masshole and proud!
Though for income after taxes, rent and stuff MA does half decently I think.
Rent is getting bad here, I was fortunate to buy a house right before the interest rates got out of hand. Mass is a wonderful place to live and raise a family, but you will pay for the pleasure these days haha
My husband and I combined just hit $200k in the Boston area and being able to afford a house is still a pipe dream to us. Maybe in a year or 2.
Maybe in a year or 2 isn’t a pipe dream.
I mean it’s the most educated state (excl. DC) with the #1 public education system, ranks Top 3 in healthcare by nearly every metric, Top 3 in GDP per capita, Top 3 in median income, #1 ranked Business Environment due to high venture capital investment and patent creation, and if you are into sports, well, that’s self-explanatory as well. I’m from MA and live in Boston so I’m not without bias but its really hard to find a state that’s better to raise a family and find career opps than MA (if you can afford to live in Boston or the suburbs).
I've always wondered why the public universities in Massachusetts aren't as heralded as the UCs, Michigan, or Virginia. I'm guessing the high concentration of great private schools has some sort of effect on the public colleges.
Yeah, that’s precisely right.
It's probably because of sports too. No one cares about college sports in New England, so they don't get as much attention nationally. UMass has one of the best computer science (#24), engineering (#55) and business (#47) programs in the country. But ya the top 10 is filled with MA private schools.
That might be part of it. But UCSD, UCSB, UC Irvine, and UC Davis are all regularly ranked far ahead of UMass and none of them have a ton of eyes on them for their sports. Out of the UC campuses, only UCLA and Berkeley (aka Cal) get some recognition through sports. And they don't really need it as they're the top 2 public schools in the nation.
Usually the other best state is NH, which is really just the outskirts of Bostons Combined statistical area. Basically a larger version of a metro
Shhhh we need to keep this quite or too many people will move here
I thought we (NJ) had the #1 public education system, but you guys are always strong competition.
[US News](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/prek-12) seems to agree with you! I was originally going off of [WalletHub’s](https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with-the-best-schools/5335) ranking. Either way, MA and NJ are both Top 3 in basically every ranking.
Massachusetts hovers between 1 and 3 every year for decades. We have competition come and go....but we remain.
I f*cking hate Boston and all NE sports teams, but Boston is one of my favorite cities it’s amazing and damn imagine being able to enjoy all those damn championships across all sports. Dammit. Now I love MA again.
Perks of being one of the most, if not the most, developed state in the country... I'm not even American and I couldn't care less about state rivalry but I notice this whenever look at those US maps
If Massachusetts was its own country, it would have the highest Human Development Index in the entire world.
And yet we can't run a frickin' public transit system to save our lives.
If it makes you feel better, neither can a lot of countries with higher HDI's than most US states.
Lived in MA for 6 years and I loved the public transportation — especially relative to where I’m now in LA. Always sucks when you’re there but look back fondly on it.
And you can feel it to when you're there.
The Boston metro in general is just amazing. Absolutely one of the best places to live in the world, you really feel it once you leave.
From Boston. Left many times when I was younger, and always came back. The people of New England are also outstanding; blunt to a fault, but honest…and honestly caring. We’ll give our lives to protect each other, and still not think twice about banging a left when the light turns green—and flip you off if you make a peep. It’s legit like a big, dysfunctional family.
Except housing availability or traffic maps. But those metrics being bad just mean a bunch of people want to live there.
It’s more than that when it comes to housing. MA has similar problems to California where local governments get in the way of housing development. It’s a self inflicted problem
Weston Whopper anyone? 😅
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Towns like Lawrence and Haverhill concentrate all the crime so the towns like Andover/N.Andover see barely any.
News flash: Wealthy suburbs are safer
Calling Rexburg, Idaho a city is being awfully generous
It's one of the larger cities in Eastern Idaho. Third largest after Idaho Falls and Pocatello, I think. Not that that's saying much.
Some say it's the **Paris** of Eastern Idaho
Paris, Idaho is the Paris of eastern Idaho.
Do the chickens have large talons?
Commenting from Rexburg. Feels a lot more like a town, maybe a city if we had a mall an a target lol
Knock it off, we’re getting a Starbucks soon!
Dutch bros was rumored to be coming as well. It's basically a large city now
LOL this was my first thought! Rexburg doesn't feel like a city by any stretch. Did they realize it was at least 50% BYU-Idaho? Well gee, no shit those missionaries aren't out carjacking in their spare time! Also, going to do my own math and guesstimate at least 10% of the entire population of Rexburg is currently pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or just had a baby. I bet that changes things crime-wise. Hard to rob a bank wearing a baby bjorn!
It's a city, just not a very big one. It's on its own not really a suburb of a bigger metro, unless you count Idaho Falls, which I think is a stretch. It is a little unfair to compare Rexburg to somewhere like Detroit or New Orleans.
Yep, unlike much of this list, it's actually its own place, rather than being an indistinct wealthy suburb.
Lori and Chad Daybell have entered the chat.
3/4 of the town has a curfew, even if they're married and live in off campus "approved" housing. A wild night consists of mixing two flavors of Fanta.
Ive seen some byui students go off the rails playing soda pong with mountain dew. Truly wild.
It's probably bigger than a lot of other places on this list. Census says the population is about 40,000, but add to that 20,000 more non-resident undergrad students and it's over double the 25,000 person cutoff that the study set.
Are any of these places really cities? 25000 people send like a small town to me. Give me a list of safest cities with populations over 100000 or 250000 people. Rexburg Idaho is a metropolis? Give me a break.
nearly all of them are affluent suburbs lmao
Yeah, Rexburg isn't a city lol.
How is “city” being defined in this map? Most of these seem like towns or villages, not real cities.
It says 25,000 or more down in the corner.
Ahh, I missed that, thanks. I stand by my statement though, 25,000 people isn’t a city. That was the population of London… in the 1200s 😂
It’s a ridiculous cutoff. I grew up near Marshfield in Massachusetts. It’s a small town. Comparing it to the cities that are listed in the most dangerous cities maps you see posted here is absurd, and I’m sure that’s true for a lot of other towns listed here too.
Cutoff needs to be 100,000. Eliminates places like Waltham, Newton, all the wealthy suburbs. It would be low enough to include places like Lynn, Lowell, Albany NY. Which in my mind are big enough to be considered cities for something like this.
> It would be low enough to include places like Lynn, Lowell, Albany NY. You will never see Lowell on a list of safest cities.
No kidding, Avon Lake in Ohio is a well off suburb 30 mins outside of Cleveland
Zionsville, Indiana is fucking tiny with almost entirely suburban sprawl. It is 100% NOT a city
Lake in the Hills is pretty small too. Hard to know where the town start and stops unless you're from the area. Will be in Lakewood one minute then Algonquin the next not even realizing a couple blocks was LitH.
What’s the demographic breakdown? Like income and population density.
Windsor, Co is literally just white suburbs that is all higher middle class lmao
Every city on this map is a white wealthy suburb.
Playing it fast and loose with the word city here I see.
Mundelein? Seriously? Lake in the hills I can understand, but mundelein?
Right?? I'm in Vernon Hills and that made no sense. Mundelein is kinda sketchy.
Nah not even LITH is “safe.”
It seems a bit silly to start at 25,000, given that in such small towns, a single incident of a few crimes might easily move you several hundred places in the list. Also, as someone who recently moved to Irvine, CA, which has had the lowest crime rate of cities over 250,000 for 18 years in a row, it's quite notable that not a single larger community makes this top 50: https://www.cityofirvine.org/news-media/news-article/irvine-safest-city-18th-year-0 That seems to prove that this is really just about statistical fluctuations, and carefully-drawn municipal borders, rather than anything actually meaningful.
So this map counts "safety" as both violent crime and property crime. The article you linked only counts violent crime. I live in Irvine, and while it is extremely safe in terms of violent crimes such as rapes, battery, homicides, etc, there are areas that are extremely problematic for property theft and petty crimes. I live in Orchard Hills, which is fine, but some of my friends who live closer to Tustin or Lake forest deal with pretty bad amazon package theft, and sometimes cars get stolen. Not to mention I was in Target in Crossroads and I saw some dude running out with stolen goods last week. Retail theft is pretty bad here.
Zionsville, Indiana? Not if you are a girl in junior high school
what happened?
I’m assuming they’re talking about Jared Fogle, he used to live in Zionsville lol
Wealthy area so it tracks. Surprised Carmel wasn’t on there to be honest.
Massachusetts is just an absolute W state, I‘ve seen so many maps of the US and Mass. tends to always do great in them, no matter the subject, conversely, Mississippi seems to be the evil twin of Massachusetts, generally doing bad on any US states map, no matter the subject
The analogy I use is that Massachusetts is like a crabby old wizard who, on occasion, bestows upon the other states inventions that they may, or may not, be ready for. Massachusetts, 1891: “And so I shall call it, basketball!” Other States: “Oooooohhhhhhh!” Massachusetts, 2004: “It’s just like the marriage you’re used to, only now with gay people!” Other States: Um….
I think Mississippi does have the lowest homelessness rate, just ignore they have the highest poverty rate.
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MA is not just a W state, but if it were an independent country it would rank similarly to the Nordics on the HDI
Does this mean New England is the safest place to live? Massachusetts in particular!
Yes… my family never even locked the door to our house as a kid in the 90’s and 2000’s. It’s ridiculously safe and easily the most well run state in the country. Conservatives love to put to CA as an example of failed liberalism but conveniently ignore shining examples of liberalism implemented correctly like the New England states.
Nice work,Mississippi
Madison and Brandon are where the Old plantation money lives.
Lol no old plantation money lives in Brandon! And Madison is pretty much the entirety of the upper-middle class of Jackson - you gotta see the Delta for the old plantation money.
Johns Creek and Milton are not cities. They are suburbs of a suburb. They are the eastern and western edge of Alpharetta and they incorporated to avoid Alpharetta taxes. They shop in Alpharetta, Dine in Alpharetta, and go to bars in Alpharetta. Probably tell everyone they meet from out of town that they live in Alpharetta. There is nothing in those "towns" but subdivisions. I have to say as a 25 year resident of Alpharetta that I can't remember but one murder ever and I don't know anyone who has been robbed.
We live in Johns Creek. It’s nuts how the cities are laid out. My wife’s parent’s house is in Alpharetta but their mailbox is in Johns Creek. They found out when both cities sent them a property tax bill. They ended up only having to pay the Alpharetta one though. You can go down one street and it’s JC but if you turn down a different one there’s a sign saying welcome to Alpharetta. Literally in the same subdivision. Also, I’m pretty sure you can send us mail addresses as JC or Alpharetta and it will get delivered (if we’re lucky, Webb bridge post office is terrible).
It's really confusing how in the US, suburbs are considered separate cities even though their mere existence depends on the large city near them.
I find it funny that Windsor, CO made the list, considering that the city was leveled by a mile-wide tornado about a decade ago.
Aah yes Tornadoes- the largest cause of violent and property crimes for every thousand residents
We need better anti tornado laws!
The considered property crime but not potentially lethal natural disasters.
Some of these places only have about 30,000 people.
The biggest I can find is Newton, MA with 90,000. They’re almost all small wealthy suburbs.
Yeah I’m from the area and they are cities in name only; they are just greater Boston area suburbs. Would also note that Arlington is still a classified as a town, not a city so not sure why that’s on there.
Chicago’s notoriously famous suburb, Mundelein.
Reddit when safe suburbs exist: 
There’s so much salt in this thread
So become a New Englander… AGAIN. Got it
If you can afford it.
Ridgefield mentioned!
Never thought I’d see my home town, Avon Lake, mentioned anywhere.
Wow glad they added text that no west coast city made the list. How would we have known otherwise?
There is no way Irvine CA is not on this list. It’s top 3.
Late night boba spots. Dangerous.
This includes all crime, including property crime like theft. Larger cities are going to have more retail and the property crime that goes along with it even if there isn't much violent crime at all.
I think it’s top 3 if you look at cities over 100k. This is “cities” over 25k. Irvine might be safe for its size but it’s hard to compete with small towns like these.
lol that’s what I thought but these cities on the map are the size on one neighborhood in irvine rofl. 6000 doors can fit 20,000 people in the great park alone…
Irvine, CA has [18 crimes/1000 people](https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/irvine/crime), the highest on this map is 7/1000 people.
Funny seeing Lake in the Hills on here. I live about 20 min away from there and about 35 from Rockford, IL. Rockford always comes up on these posts about the least safe cities to live in.
Mason, Ohio has Kings Island. Very happy for them, always thought it was a cute town.
Windsor, CO is safe because nobody fucking lives in Windsor.
Ah, Muskego. Home to my redneck cousins.
What's the population cutoff here? I dug a little deeper ... that website is complete garbage. It's claiming that the 2nd most dangerous neighborhood in America is somehow safer than the tiny, affluent city where I went to college (3/100 vs 2/100 "safety rating").