With the U.S. experiencing over 400 mass shootings and nearly 25,000 motor vehicle deaths so far this year, WalletHub today released its report on 2024's Safest Cities in America, as well as expert commentary, to highlight where people are at the lowest risk of physical and financial harm.
WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 41 key metrics. The data set ranges from traffic fatalities per capita and assaults per capita to the unemployment rate and the percentage of the population that is uninsured.
| Safest Cities in America | Least Safe Cities in America |
| 1. South Burlington, VT | 173. San Bernardino, CA |
| 2. Casper, WY | 174. Philadelphia, PA |
| 3. Warwick, RI | 175. Oakland, CA |
| 4. Burlington, VT | 176. Cleveland, OH |
| 5. Boise, ID | 177. Baltimore, MD |
| 6. Yonkers, NY | 178. New Orleans, LA |
| 7. Cedar Rapids, IA | 179. Baton Rouge, LA |
| 8. Columbia, MD | 180. Fort Lauderdale, FL |
| 9. Portland, ME | 181. Detroit, MI |
| 10. Virginia Beach, VA | 182. Memphis, TN |
Safest vs. Least Safe
- Virginia Beach, Virginia, has the fewest aggravated assault incidents (per 100,000 residents), which is 65.5 times fewer than in Oakland, California, the city with the most.
- Warwick, Rhode Island, has the fewest thefts (per 1,000 residents), which is 47.8 times fewer than in Jackson, Mississippi, the city with the most.
- Washington, D.C., has the most law-enforcement employees (per 100,000 residents), which is 5.3 times more than in Irvine, California, the city with the fewest.
- Jersey City, New Jersey, has among the fewest pedestrian fatalities (per 100,000 residents), which is 39 times fewer than in Memphis, Tennessee, the city with the most.
To read the full report and your city’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/
“When people think about safety in a city, their minds probably immediately go to things like the crime rate, auto fatality rate or risk of natural disasters. The safest cities in America protect residents from these threats of bodily harm and property damage, but on top of that, they also help secure people’s financial safety. Financial safety includes things like minimizing the risk of fraud and identity theft, keeping the population employed and insured, and combating homelessness.”
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“South Burlington, VT, is the safest city in 2024, in part because it has the lowest pedestrian fatality rate in the country along with the 13th-lowest percentage of uninsured motorists. One area where South Burlington really shines is financial safety. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, at 1.9%, the second-lowest share of seriously underwater mortgages, and the third-fewest non-business bankruptcy filings per capita over the past year. On top of that, South Burlington has the 14th-lowest risk of flooding, 21st-lowest risk of tornadoes and 31st-lowest risk of wildfires.”
- Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst
Expert Commentary
What are some of the top public safety issues this year?
“Public safety departments continue to face some internal and external issues. Two of the most persistent external pressures is the expectation by the public that these organizations can address the wicked problems associated with the mental/emotional health, wellness, and wellbeing of some of the individuals they serve, and the challenges that accompany those who are unhoused. In terms of internal pressures, even though some departments have made strides in recruitment and retention, this continues to be problematic for many police departments. Police departments and other public safety organizations have been described as ‘catch all’ agencies – serving as ‘the service provider’ of last resort. This impacts the wellness and wellbeing of those professionals and highlights another internal pressure.”
Brian N. Williams, Ph.D. – Professor; Founder & Director, The Public Engagement in Governance Looking, Listening, & Learning Laboratory (PEGLLLLab), University of Virginia
“Despite it being a presidential election year, the national conversation on public safety is a bit more muted than it has been in recent years. To the extent that public safety has taken center stage lately, attention has largely focused on the intersection of immigration and crime and the misunderstood (and, often, deliberately misrepresented) connection between the two. In an age where immigrant communities are both falsely and farcically being accused of eating pets and stealing ‘Black jobs,’ the conversation has primarily focused on dog-whistled allegations that rising immigration contributes to crime and social disorder. These claims persist despite the fact that immigrant communities tend to have higher rates of employment, lower rates of divorce and family disruption, and higher rates of educational enrollment, all of which are factors that tend strongly toward reduced crime and greater social order. All this to say that the public safety issues of the day suffer from a considerable disconnection from documented truth, which distracts from more pressing public safety concerns, like access to mental health services, housing, and education, each of which has a far stronger linkage to safety than immigration.”
Jorge X. Camacho – Policy Director and Clinical Lecturer in Law, Justice Collaboratory, Yale Law School
What measures can police departments take to increase public trust? How important is it to have a police force that is representative of the local community?
“Police can take public input in an organized manner, such as citizen boards. Also, police must show their dedication to effective and efficient use of resources. People want to know the police either make us safer or try hard enough to make us safe. In addition, police must make proactive moves to invite scientific research to either prove their enforcement is fair and just or find and correct their wrongdoing.”
Jonathan Lee, Ph.D. – Associate Professor, Penn State Harrisburg
“Public trust is the coin of the realm for police departments. The past historic harms that are associated with American policing can have a presence in the present. Police organizations must acknowledge this and act accordingly. They have an opportunity to use existing programs like their citizen police academies to share their ‘origin stories’ – warts and all – while highlighting how they have evolved and made changes in hopes of enhancing relational policing. Police departments are and should be learning organizations. Many departments have taken strides to make their agencies better reflect the communities that they serve. But passive representation can be symbolic and have little to no effect. Active representation is needed – where lived experiences of a diverse cadre of officers emerge out of their uniforms, into their insights, interpretations, and interactions with the public.”
Brian N. Williams, Ph.D. – Professor; Founder & Director, The Public Engagement in Governance Looking, Listening, & Learning Laboratory (PEGLLLLab), University of Virginia
How do police shortages affect safety in U.S. cities?
“This depends entirely on how we use the police officers we currently have. To the extent that police officers do have a noteworthy impact on public safety, it tends to be most impactful when it comes to curbing violent crime. However, reviews of police officer timekeeping consistently show that police typically spend the bulk of their time on filling out paperwork, enforcing petty traffic violations, and performing community caretaking functions like conducting wellness checks. All these functions could feasibly be handled outside of policing, which would free up policing resources to handle the specific public safety tasks that necessitate their specialization. It’s therefore prudent to ask whether any shortage is more the result of an inefficient distribution of our existing policing resources rather than the result of having too few officers to do what we need officers to do, and whether viable alternatives exist for handling the kinds of tasks that we currently, and unnecessarily, rely on police officers to perform for us (and at great cost to both communities and officers themselves).”
Jorge X. Camacho – Policy Director and Clinical Lecturer in Law, Justice Collaboratory, Yale Law School
“Police shortages can have a profound negative effect on safety. Shortages lead to overworking officers who are already overworked. This can impact their performance, productivity, and morale, distress recruitment and retention efforts, while also adding more fuel to the lack of public trust and confidence fire. Yet, these shortages also provide an opportunity to cultivate and expand the shared responsibility that is embedded in the first word from the phrases: ‘public safety’ and ‘community policing.’ It takes all of us – those in uniform and out – from across all demographics, organizational sectors, and the like to unite our diversity to keep our communities safe and well.”
Brian N. Williams, Ph.D. – Professor; Founder & Director, The Public Engagement in Governance Looking, Listening, & Learning Laboratory (PEGLLLLab), University of Virginia
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