Ballwin Is The 39th Safest City In America: Analysis

A new analysis has ranked the 100 safest cities in America and just one city in Missouri made the list.

NeighborhoodScout, a web-based platform from Location, Inc., compared the safety of cities with at least 25,000 people based on the total number of property and violent crimes per 1,000 residents.

Their analysis, released on Monday, found that 37 percent of the nation’s safest cities reside in just two states: Massachusetts and Illinois, which had 19 and 18 cities on the list, respectively.

Ballwin — the only Missouri city to make the list — was the 39th safest city in the country, with a crime index of 76 out of 100, with 100 being the safest.

Ballwin is safer than 76 percent of cities in America, NeighborhoodScout says. There were 11 violent crimes in the city, a rate of 0.36 per 1,000 residents. There were no murders and five reported rapes.

Ballwin also saw 21 burglaries, a rate of 0.69 per 1,000 residents.

NeighborhoodScout says the odds of becoming a victim of a violent crime in Ballwin are one in 2,756 compared to one in 193 in the state of Missouri.

The safest city in America, NeighborhoodScout says, is Ridgefield, Connecticut, with a crime index of 95. The city, which has just over 25,000 people, saw no murders, rapes or robberies last year.

Andrew Schiller, CEO and founder of Location, Inc. and NeighborhoodScout, said bedroom communities within large metro areas and near major urban centers such as Boston, Chicago, and New York continue to make their list.

"These safe communities within the urban/suburban fabric of America's largest metropolitan areas often combine access to high-paying jobs in the urban center, decent schools, and a high quality of life,” Schiller said in a release. “This access to opportunity increases home values, with the result often being lower crime."
The safest cities rankings list differs from NeighborhoodScout's list of the most dangerous cities because it comprises both violent and property crimes. The group says the general public tends to equate a “dangerous" city with "violent" crime and a "safe" city with safety from both property crime and violence.

NeighborhoodScout says its analysis includes all reported crimes from all 18,000 local law enforcement agencies across the country.

Patch reporter Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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