There is an ongoing stereotype that bigger cities are more dangerous. While no larger cities (population 300,000 or more) made the overall list of safest, less than half of the 15 least safe cities in the U.S. Most Dangerous Cities were determined by analysis based on their cost per capita of crime.
Mass shootings in American cities are getting worse
Mass shootings are a particular blight on American life. According to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as any single incident in which four or more people are killed, there were 648 mass shootings in 2022 and 18 as of January 9, 2023.
Mass shooting events are included in our rankings of the safest and most dangerous cities. While they’re relatively rare, we don’t change our leaderboards for these events. The emotional impact of mass shootings is incalculable, traumatizing families and entire communities. To quantify the economic impact, MoneyGeek calculated that the total cost of mass shootings in 2021 was $8 billion, or about 4% of the total cost of crime in the approximately 263 cities it analyzed and a 33% increase in costs from 2020 to 2021.
WORST CITIES FOR MASS SHOOTINGS IN 2021
Security and the cost of crime
The direct economic costs of crime to individuals and society include the medical and mental health needs of victims, damages and loss of property, and policing and corrections costs. Aside from the imminent danger of crime, people living in higher crime areas see low home values and pay higher average home insurance, renter’s insurance, and property insurance premiums. car.
To rate the safest cities, MoneyGeek analyzed crime data, including violent crimes like murder, rape, and aggravated assault, and property crimes like home burglary and motor vehicle theft. This list calculated each city’s cost of crime and ranked cities by per capita cost of crime. Additionally, the researchers quantified how much more violent crimes cost a community compared to property crimes.
While perceptions of safety are vital, crime statistics do not capture the entire history of any city or community.
“Behind all these averages that people love to quote about 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 the Brown University researching educational issues and inner-city gang violence. “There’s a lot more heterogeneity in these patterns that we can’t measure.”
Despite the real threats, Bruhn says, it may come as a surprise how safe people can feel in neighborhoods with high crime rates.
