Which cities in the US are the safest places to live? Those concerned with crime levels or obsessed with nostalgia for the days when they could leave their front doors unlocked while they popped out to the store will no doubt be pondering this question.
The Farmers Insurance Group of Companies recently released its eighth annual study into the “most secure places to live” for 2011, ranking almost 400 communities, large, mid-sized and small, on the security and safety they offer their residents.
The company took a number of factors into account to produce the rankings, including local crime statistics, housing depreciation, foreclosures, natural disasters, environmental hazards, air quality, car accidents, terrorism, and life expectancy.
Topping the charts for the safest large metropolitan area to live was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which came out top of all metro areas with a population of 500,000 or more. The city moved up ten places from the previous year, well above its all time rank of 9th safest city, which it earned back in 2005. Farmers Insurance Group pointed to the city’s low personal crime rate, low housing depreciation and the low number of car accidents as the main factors behind its safety rating.
Kennewick-Richland-Pasco in Washington state came out on top for safety and security in the mid-sized cities list, which includes settlements with a population of 150,000 to 500,000, while Ithaca, New York was said to be the safest of all small towns (150,000 or less population) in the US.
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