4 Mass. towns ranked in the top 15 safest communities in the U.S.
Most of the safest cities were found to be in the northeast.
If you’re in the market for a home in Massachusetts, this list is for you. A new report found that four Massachusetts towns were among the top 15 safest communities in the U.S.
According to MoneyGeek, a financial advice site, Andover, Arlington, Needham, and North Andover experience less crime than the vast majority of small cities and large towns in the U.S.
Andover achieved the highest ranking, being named the third-safest community in America. Arlington wasn’t far behind, coming in at number five. Needham was ranked ninth, and North Andover, fourteenth.
To come up with the rankings, MoneyGeek used FBI crime statistics from 2021 — the most recent year of available data. Overall, it ranked 660 small cities and large towns across the country.
In addition to the rankings, the researchers made other important findings.
Notably, seven out of the top 10 safest communities were in the northeast, with Yorktown, New York, a suburb of New York City, coming in at number one. The least safe towns were more spread out, with Pine Bluff, Arkansas deemed the worst.
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Crime impacts a community not just emotionally, but also economically, the researchers said. In addition to direct costs from loss of property, high-crime communities spend more municipal money on victim services, policing, and corrections. Their residents also pay higher rates for car, homeowners, and renters insurance.
With that in mind, the researchers said, there is often an assumption that small cities are safer than large cities — so they wanted to put this to the test.
Notably, they found that crime in small cities decreased by 5% between 2020 and 2021, while crime in large cities increased by 6% during that time period. Additionally, they said, small cities spend 42% less money addressing crime.
Even so, the researchers said, small cities must be looked at individually. In Pine Bluff, the per capita cost of crime is $9,071, even higher than St. Louis, Missouri — the most dangerous city on their large city list, where the per capita cost of crime is $8,457.
Similarly, Cedar City, Utah, which has a population of 36,903, has a cost of crime per capita of $867. This is comparable to New York City, which has a population of 8.4 million and a cost of crime per capita of $863.