1 FL City Named 'Safest Place To Live,' Per Study

FLORIDA — Small towns are known for their tight-knit communities, charm and safety, though some small towns are notably safer than others.

MoneyGeek, a personal finance site, had researchers analyze last year's FBI crime data of smaller towns and cities where the population is between 30,000 and 100,000.

The report found that the safest town in the United States is located in Monroe Township, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City.

Overall, small cities and towns have a 48 percent lower crime cost than larger cities, the report found.

While many of the safest small communities are found in the Northeast, one town in Florida also made the list. Oviedo in Seminole County made the list with the crime cost per capita tabulating at $202.

These are the top 10 safest small cities and towns in the U.S., per MoneyGeek, and the cost per capita of crime:

1. Monroe Township, NJ, $31
2. Hillsborough Township, NJ, $40
3. Zionsville, IN, $51
4. Wallingford, CT, $55
5. Shrewsbury, MA, $59
6. Mason, OH, $65
7. Lone Peak, UT, $66
8. Westfield, NJ, $71
9. Cranberry Township, PA, $78
10. (Tie) Rancho Santa Margarita, CA; Windsor, CO; Princeton, NJ, $81

To read the full report, visit MoneyGeek's website.

Methodology

To rank the safest small cities and towns in the United States, MoneyGeek started with standardized crime statistics reported to the FBI from 2022, the latest year of available data. To determine crime rates per 100,000 people, population data accessed from the FBI was added to the analysis. For purposes of this analysis, MoneyGeek focused on cities with a population between 30,000 and 100,000 residents and included 1,010 cities in the ranking. Please note that 2022 data was not available for small cities in Florida, Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. When cities did not have data available in the FBI dataset, MoneyGeek conducted individualized research on standardized crime statistics for each specific city or town.

MoneyGeek relied on research by professors Kathryn McCollister and Michael French of the University of Miami and Hai Fang of the University of Colorado Denver to determine the cost of crime to society. Their findings were integrated into the broader data set to better understand the societal cost of crime within individual cities.