The city of South Burlington, Vt.—home to Vermont’s one major airport, Lake Champlain sunsets, and 20,000 residents—has been deemed the Safest City in America by WalletHub, according to its 2024 Safest Cities in America list, released on Oct. 7.
The full top 10 list is as follows:
- South Burlington, Vt.
- Casper, Wyo.
- Warwick, R.I.
- Burlington, Vt.
- Boise, Idaho
- Yonkers, N.Y.
- Cedar Rapids, Iowa
- Columbus, Md.
- Portland, Maine
- Virginia Beach, Va.
To determine its list, WalletHub compared 182 cities—including the 150 most populated U.S. cities, plus at least two of the most populated cities in each state—in three main categories: home and community safety, natural-disaster risk, and financial safety.
“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,” noted Chip Lupo, WalletHub analyst, in the report. “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.”
With that in mind, Lupo and others at WalletHub evaluated the three categories using 41 relevant metrics—including traffic fatalities per capita, law-enforcement employees per capita, assaults per capita, hate crimes per capita, number of mass shootings, road quality, earthquake risk index score, unemployment rate, and the natural-disaster risk level—each graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of safety.
They then determined the weighted average of each city (excluding cities in the surrounding metro area) across all metrics for an overall score, ranking them with those scores.
Below, a closer look at the top three.
South Burlington, Vt.
Also landing a spot on the recent Fortune Best Places to Live for Families list (at No. 29) for its outdoor access, sustainability initiatives, and low crime rates, South Burlington scored big here for its safe roads: It has one of the lowest pedestrian fatality rates in the country, the 13th-lowest percentage of uninsured motorists, and the ninth-most EMTs and paramedics per capita.
Further, it has the lowest unemployment rate in the country (1.9%), the second-lowest share of seriously underwater mortgages, and the third-fewest nonbusiness bankruptcy filings per capita over the past year. “This demonstrates that residents are doing well financially and are at a reduced risk of being unable to pay their bills, losing their property, or becoming homeless,” the report explains.
The city is also relatively safe from natural disasters, with the 14th-lowest risk of flooding, 21st-lowest risk of tornadoes, and 31st-lowest risk of wildfires.
Casper, Wyo.
This outdoorsy mountain community on the North Platte River also benefited from its safe roads, as Casper has one of the lowest pedestrian fatality rates. It also has the 32nd-lowest aggravated assault rate, is the second-safest city for walking alone at night, and the fourth-safest for walking alone during the day, according to studies by Numbeo. Furthermore, it has the 42nd-lowest murder rate among all the assessed cities.
Regarding natural disasters, Casper residents are relatively safe: The city has the sixth-lowest risk of hail, 20th-lowest risk of flooding, 24th-lowest risk of tornadoes, and 32nd-lowest risk of earthquakes.
Financial safety was strong, too, as Casper has the fewest identity theft complaints and the second-fewest fraud complaints per capita—plus the fifth-lowest percentage of uninsured drivers, which, the report explains, “prevents people from racking up hefty expenses after an accident.”
Warwick, R.I.
This historic coastal city is the third-safest on the list, with the lowest number of murders and the second-lowest number of aggravated assaults per capita, plus the fewest thefts per capita.
Warwick is also well-situated when it comes to risk of natural disasters, with the seventh-lowest risk of hail, 10th-lowest risk of wildfires, 23rd-lowest risk of tornadoes, and 29th-lowest risk of earthquakes.
Regarding financial safety, the city has the seventh-lowest percentage of residents without health insurance and the sixth-lowest percentage who are living in poverty—plus the 20th-fewest fraud complaints per capita.
WalletHub also asked a panel of public safety efforts—among them Jonathan Lee, Penn State Harrisburg associate professor of criminal justice—to weigh in on this year’s biggest concerns. “More crimes everywhere,” Lee said. “Due to COVID residual effect and poor economy, there are more people dealing with stressful life, which leads to an increase in social problems.”
Jorge X. Camacho, policy director and clinical lecturer in law at the Justice Collaboratory of Yale Law School, noted that 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 been a focus, he said, “attention has largely focused on the intersection of immigration and crime and the misunderstood (and, often, deliberately misrepresented) connection between the two,” as immigrant communities tend to have higher rates of employment, lower rates of divorce, and higher rates of educational enrollment, all of which lend themselves to greater safety.
“All this to say that the public safety issues of the day suffer from a considerable disconnection from documented truth,” said Camacho, “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.”
Further overlap between WalletHub’s Safest Cities list and the Fortune Best Places to Live for Families list includes South Portland, Maine, on Fortune and, on WalletHub, the neighboring Portland, Maine (at No. 9)—as well as Fargo, N.D. (No. 12 on WalletHub) and Sioux Falls, S.D. (No. 22 on WalletHub). See the full 2024 Safest Cities in America list and report here.
