(NEXSTAR) — If you’re looking to move, you may have a number of aspects about the suburb you’re considering — what are the nearest schools like, is it a walkable area, how close is it to your job are all relatively common questions.
You’re also likely wondering how safe the area is. As you may expect, there are a number of things that can impact the perceived safety of the suburb.
SmartAsset, a personal finance website, reviewed 370 suburbs across the 100 largest cities in the U.S. and analyzed them based on multiple safety-related metrics: violent crime rates and property crime rates based on FBI data as well as rates of adults engaging in excessive drinking and deaths related to traffic accidents and drug poisonings from County Health Rankings.
Overall, SmartAsset found suburbs on the East Coast and in the Midwest were among the safest. Suburbs in the West and South ranked further down on the list.
Great Falls, Virginia, a Washington D.C. suburb located along the Potomac River ranked highest on SmartAsset’s list. The census-designated location — where Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin once lived — had the second-lowest violent crime rate at 6.81 per 100,000 residents (coming in behind Edgerton, Wisconsin, with a crime rate of 0) and one of the lowest vehicle mortality rates. Additionally, SmartAsset found that, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, Great Falls had the highest median household income of any of the suburbs analyzed at just over $250,000.
Nearby Bethesda, Maryland ranked third on the list, boasting some of the lowest vehicle mortality and excessive drinking rates in the study. Indiana suburbs comprised the rest of the top five safest, with Carmel ranking second overall and Fishers and Noblesville rounding out the list.
The 10 safest suburbs, according to SmartAsset’s analysis, are:
- Great Falls, Virginia
- Carmel, Indiana
- Bethesda, Maryland
- Fishers, Indiana
- Noblesville, Indiana
- Lehi, Utah
- Fort Bliss, Texas
- Frisco, Texas
- Dacula, Georgia
- Castle Rock, Colorado
Edgerton, Wisconsin had the lowest violent crime rate per 100,000 residents at 0. Fort Bliss, Texas had the lowest overall property crime rate (218 per 100,000 residents). Lexington and Somerville Massachusetts tied for the fewest vehicular deaths at 3.6 per 100,000 while Waukee, Iowa had the lowest rate of deaths due to drug poisonings at 6.1 per 100,000.
Not every suburb had such low rates, of course.
Gonzales, Louisiana had the worst overall safety rating. Located outside Baton Rouge, the suburb had the second-worst property crime rates at 7,466 per 100,000 residents, coming in behind Pineville, North Carolina’s 11,600.
Florida had the most suburb ranking among the bottom of SmartAsset’s list, including DeLand, which ranked as the second-worst overall behind Gonzales.
The 10 lowest-ranking suburbs in SmartAsset’s analysis were:
- Gonzales, Louisiana
- DeLand, Florida
- Treasure Island, Florida
- Rock Hill, South Carolina
- Washington, Pennsylvania
- Granite City, Illinois
- Wilmington, Delaware
- Largo, Florida
- Jacksonville Beach, Florida
- Lumberton, North Carolina
Lumberton had the highest violent crime rate on the list at 2,263 per 100,000 residents, as well as the highest rate of vehicular deaths at 36.2. Petersburg, Virginia recorded the highest drug poisoning mortality rate at 68.6 per 100,000.
SmartAsset’s full list and methodology can be found here.
Another recent analysis of FBI data, conducted by U.S. News and World Report, found states in the Northeast — Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut — were largely the safest, reporting lower rates of violent crime and property crime than others.
