St Louis is the most dangerous city in America, finds study, but which one is the safest?
As more and more Americans feel insecure over threats like mass shootings, personal finance website WalletHub on Monday, December 2, released a study that lists the most and least safe cities in the US in 2019.
The study compared over 180 cities across 41 metrics including assault per capita, natural disaster, unemployment rate and road quality.
Columbia, Maryland, was found to be the safest city. The city had a total score of 85.33 over three parameters: home and community safety, natural disaster risk, and financial safety. Columbia finished third in the first parameter but 63rd and 77th in the next two.
Yonkers in New York finished second with a score of 84.80. It was found to be the safest in terms of home and community safety but 116th in terms of financial safety.
The top five safe cities also included: Plano, Texas (83.54); Gilbert, Arizona (83.44) and South Burlington, Vermont (83.33).
Unsafe cities
St Louis, Missouri, was found to be the least safe city. It got a score of 42.90 with a rank of 179 in home and community safety, and 156 in financial safety. It was not ranked in terms of natural disaster risk. However, it still earned a good name from thousands of travelers visiting it from around the globe.
Fort Lauderdale in Florida was found to be the second least safe city with a score of 45.88. It was ranked 169th in home and community safety; 174th in financial safety and was not ranked in terms of natural disaster risk.
San Bernardino, California, was the third least safe city but with a much better score than St Louis at 53.93.
Detroit, Michigan, was the fourth least safe city though with a much better ranking (41) in the natural disaster risk category.
Baton Rouge in Los Angeles was the fifth least safe city with a score of 56.26. It was the worst-faring city in terms of home and community safety (182).
Other parameters
In terms of aggravated assault incidents (per 100,000 residents), California’s Irvine registered the fewest number of cases at 23.26 while Detroit has almost 1,478.
Florida’s Port St. Lucie, on the other hand, witnessed only 9.74 thefts per 1,000 residents. Spokane in Washington had the most at over 72.
Plano, Texas, and Lincoln, Nebraska, have the fewest number of pedestrian fatalities (per 100,000 residents) at 0.35 and it is 19 times less than the city which saw the most (6.66)—Fort Lauderdale.
South Burlington, Madison, and Honolulu are cities with the lowest unemployment rate while Detroit, Newark (New Jersey) and Stockton (California) have the highest.
Brownsville (Texas), Laredo (Texas), and Hialeah (Florida) have the most number of uninsured people while Pearl City (Hawaii), South Burlington and Worcester (Massachusetts) have the least number of uninsured population.
Cities and natural disasters
Speaking on the threat of natural disaster threatening American cities and what should be the priorities of the Donald Trump administration in terms of infrastructure investment, Jennifer A. Horney from the Disaster Research Center at University of Delaware said: “It is no longer debatable that the strength and frequency of natural disasters impacting the U.S. are increasing—4 of the wettest tropical cyclones on record have impacted the US just since 2017 (Hurricanes Harvey, Lane and Florence and Tropical Storm Imelda). Governmental officials should be taking a completely different and longer-term approach to infrastructure, investing in green infrastructure that can reduce flooding and mitigate potential environmental contamination.”