Ridgefield Named Among Safest Cities In America — Again

RIDGEFIELD, CT — It seems as though a new "safest cities in America" report is published every few months. It also seems as though Ridgefield invariably scores high.

But in the 2021 "100 Safest Cities in America" list just published by home safety and security research firm SafeWise, Ridgefield has fallen off its pace, and the top five.

This time around, the town dropped to 6th place. Ridgefield came in first last year, and second in 2019.

Here are the top 10 Safest Cities in America for 2021, according to SafeWise:

1. Hopkinton, Massachusetts
2. Franklin, Massachusetts
3. Buckingham Township, Pennsylvania
4. Oakland Township, Michigan
5. Bernards Township, New Jersey
6. Ridgefield, Connecticut
7. New Castle Town, New York
8. Sparta Township, New York
9. Hamburg Township, Michigan
10. Bedford Town, New York

The report notes the 100 Safest Cities boast a collective violent crime rate that's 92 percent lower than the national average. In addition, the top 100 cities report 79 percent fewer property crimes per 1,000 people than most of the U.S.

But Ridgefield was not the only "safe" municipality to have an off year, crime-wise. Violent crime remained stagnant while property crime saw a small rise year over year in all the Top 100 towns. The rise in property crimes hints at a possible jump in crime rates, which has not happened in over two decades. Still, the top 100 Safest Cities have a violent crime rate 12.33 times lower than the national average, and a property crime rate 4.74 times lower than the national average, according to the report.

SafeWise tabulated Ridgefield's property crime rate at 2.96 per 1,000 population. The violent crime rate was 0.04 per 100,000 (last year Ridgefield scored an impressive zero in this statistic).

A disproportionate number of the safest cities are located in the Northeast, and that may have something to do with the high incomes of households in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas. Only two cities on the list report a median household income below $50,000 per year: Rexburg, Idaho with $29,910 and Manchester Township, New Jersey with $43,369.

To identify the safest cities of 2021, SafeWise analyzed FBI crime report statistics and population data from 2019, which was the most recent year for which data was available. The rankings were based solely on crime data, and no other factor, such as COVID-19 rates, were included.

The crime rates were calculated as the rate of crimes per 1,000 people in each city. Both violent and property crime numbers were weighted equally.

Towns with populations below 2,500 were excluded because those are considered rural by census definitions, according to SafeWise. A population threshold of 17,375 was set, based on the median US population after those towns were excluded. Cities that fell below that threshold were excluded, along with cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI.