OT: 100 Safest cities in America

[MORRISCOUNTY]

Safewise just came out with the 100 safest cities in America.

New Jersey did fantastic with 31 % of all towns. PA, CT and MA all did pretty well.

New Jersey had 31 out of 100, amazing.

Although the site says they use FBI uniform crime info for their report, I believe they must have used towns with over 10,000 in population. This is a sweet spot for N.J.. If they had used cities over 100,000 in population we would have done poorly. If they used populations under 10,000 I am sure many gated communities and tiny towns across the U.S. would have made the list.



Here is the Link: http://www.safewise.com/safest-cities-america

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Nice message focusing on what the data actually means based on how they worked the numbers.

So many times you see stories on statistical reports and polls that really do not question how the data was collected and any biases that may exist in the chosen sample.

Well done.

Also, they have a 50 safest cities in NJ list also

 

[srru86]

NJ also has more municipalities than many states with more population.

 

[RU Husky]

Must be because everyone is armed in NJ

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

It depends on what you consider a City.

 

[Local Shill]

Apparently their list of safest "cities" is different than their list of safest "cities" to raise a child.

A lot of towns around RU on this bogus list.

http://www.safewise.com/blog/safest-cities-to-raise-a-child.

 

[FanuSanu52]

Have no idea why they label that list "cities" when it's basically all small towns, some of which no one outside of town limits has ever heard of.

I'd also question why so many of the safest towns are concentrated in the northeast. Based on how small those towns are, I'm quite sure there are equally safe towns all across the country. Does Safewise just have more data for the northeast? Reminds me of a "best sandwiches in America" list I read years ago - the source was located in NYC, so it was basically eight NYC sandwiches with one or two from NJ, PA and CT.

Seems pretty useless, especially since it contradicts its other list.

 

[RUChoppin]

Seems pretty useless, especially since it contradicts its other list.

Well, the two lists have different methodologies.

Safest cities: based on FBI crime statistics.
Safest cities to raise a child: based on FBI crime statistics, sex offender populations, state graduation rates, and school rankings.

 

[FanuSanu52]

Well, the two lists have different methodologies.

Safest cities: based on FBI crime statistics.
Safest cities to raise a child: based on FBI crime statistics, sex offender populations, state graduation rates, and school rankings.

Well I guess they're both mislabeled then, not just because of "cities," but because the second list is really "best towns to raise children in," since some of those factors don't have much to do with safety.

Either way, they're pretty useless.

 

[RU Husky]

Well I guess they're both mislabeled then, not just because of "cities," but because the second list is really "best towns to raise children in," since some of those factors don't have much to do with safety.

Either way, they're pretty useless.

So typical

Why should any possibly good news about NJ be accepted without massive doses of skepticism and criticism

 

[RUChoppin]

Well, the "city" label is fairly arbitrary. If we'd gone by the OP limit of Top Cities over 100,000 people, that's not very meaningful either, as there are only about 300 of them in the country to begin with... and over 100 of those are in either California or Texas.

 

[HailHailToMichigan]

So basically the Midwest and Northeast. Got it.

 

[RUChoppin]

Maybe if they'd gone by the census definition of "urbanized area" of 50K or more... I think there are about 750 of those nationwide, which would at least make a "Top 100" list at least limit it down less than the top 15%.

Alternately an "urban cluster" would be anything 2,500 through 50,000.

There really is no defined population threshold for "city".

 

[FanuSanu52]

So typical

Why should any possibly good news about NJ be accepted without massive doses of skepticism and criticism

Even if I lived in NJ and had a big, big boner for it, which I don't, I would criticize a skewed list like this. Do you seriously think that 31 towns in NJ are safer than any single town in other states? No.

Enjoy reveling in false victory.

 

[MORRISCOUNTY]

I just love some of the comments. A list on some of the safest towns in the U.S. and New Jersey dominates the list and people have negative comments. Incredible.

31 of the safest cities in the U.S. with populations over 10,000 and the comments are that this is a useless list

I explained in my post that this hits the sweet spot for NJ in that over 50,000 or under 10,000 and we have a lot fewer on this list.

New Jersey currently ranks 49th in total crime--only Vermont has a lower total crime rate.

I guess the zombies on this site just cannot accept that you live in a state with very safe communities. This is good news. Our big cities are our problem, there is much work to be done there.

 

[FanuSanu52]

Maybe if they'd gone by the census definition of "urbanized area" of 50K or more... I think there are about 750 of those nationwide, which would at least make a "Top 100" list at least limit it down less than the top 15%.

Alternately an "urban cluster" would be anything 2,500 through 50,000.

There really is no defined population threshold for "city".

Census population would be a good starting point. If they wanted to go smaller, they could have deferred to how the municipality is designated, including only places that are incorporated as cities. Most of the ones I saw on that list are townships or something else.

Really they should just change it to "towns" to make it accurate, but I guess "cities" has more google juice.

 

[FanuSanu52]

I just love some of the comments. A list on some of the safest towns in the U.S. and New Jersey dominates the list and people have negative comments. Incredible.

31 of the safest cities in the U.S. with populations over 10,000 and the comments are that this is a useless list

I explained in my post that this hits the sweet spot for NJ in that over 50,000 or under 10,000 and we have a lot fewer on this list.

New Jersey currently ranks 49th in total crime--only Vermont has a lower total crime rate.

I guess the zombies on this site just cannot accept that you live in a state with very safe communities. This is good news. Our big cities are our problem, there is much work to be done there.

Read my reply above. K. Thx.

 

[RU Husky]

Even if I lived in NJ and had a big, big boner for it, which I don't, I would criticize a skewed list like this. Do you seriously think that 31 towns in NJ are safer than any single town in other states? No.

Enjoy reveling in false victory.

I don't live in Jersey anymore either (been gone over 16 years), so there's no victory lap to take. However, your negativity in all things becomes you. Keep smiling.

 

[FanuSanu52]

I don't live in Jersey anymore either (been gone over 16 years), so there's no victory lap to take. However, your negativity in all things becomes you. Keep smiling.

Cool story.

I'd say questioning and criticizing a highly suspect report is the only smart thing to do. But you go ahead and accept it at face value. Fools do smile more, I'll grant you that.

 

[RUChoppin]

Ok, so I was bored and had a bit of time... and decided to dig into some of the quirks of this list.

Of the 100 "cities" on the list...

- None were over 50K people
- Only 3 were over 40K, 8 were over 30K, and 24 were over 20K
- Average population of the list was 17,607
- 31 from NJ, 16 each from PA and MA, and 9 from NY (that's 72% from those 4 states)
- Only 14 states were represented, and only 9 represented more than once
- 78 were from the Northeast, 17 were from the Midwest, 5 from the West, 0 from the South

If you click on some of the other states, you learn that their data isn't complete.

Under Maine, which is considered one of the safest states (though it has none in the Top 100), it says "It’s important to note that the FBI Crime Report is a distinguished source for crime statistics, but not all Maine cities reported complete data to the FBI."

Under Vermont, which is considered one of the safest states (also none in the top 100), it says "As you review the cities listed below, keep in mind that not every law enforcement agency in Vermont reported complete data to the FBI. If your hometown is safe, but missing from our list, it could be because its law enforcement agency did not report complete data to the FBI and that caused it to be removed from our consideration."

New Hampshire, also a very safe state with none in the Top 100: "When it comes to accurate crime statistics, the FBI Crime Report is considered an excellent source. However, not all New Hampshire cities reported complete data to the FBI."

Virginia, also with lower crime rates and none in the Top 100: "We eliminated all cities with fewer than 3,000 residents as well as any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI."

***

This leads me to believe that NJ probably doesn't have the highest number of "safe" townships/cities, but it does have the most complete reporting to the FBI. Same with PA, MA, and NY.

When the source data is incomplete, the outputs are going to look weird... and that looks to be the case here.

 

[FanuSanu52]

Cheers for the thorough breakdown.

 

[RU85inFla]

Ok, so I was bored and had a bit of time... and decided to dig into some of the quirks of this list.

Of the 100 "cities" on the list...

- None were over 50K people
- Only 3 were over 40K, 8 were over 30K, and 24 were over 20K
- Average population of the list was 17,607
- 31 from NJ, 16 each from PA and MA, and 9 from NY (that's 72% from those 4 states)
- Only 14 states were represented, and only 9 represented more than once
- 78 were from the Northeast, 17 were from the Midwest, 5 from the West, 0 from the South

If you click on some of the other states, you learn that their data isn't complete.

Under Maine, which is considered one of the safest states (though it has none in the Top 100), it says "It’s important to note that the FBI Crime Report is a distinguished source for crime statistics, but not all Maine cities reported complete data to the FBI."

Under Vermont, which is considered one of the safest states (also none in the top 100), it says "As you review the cities listed below, keep in mind that not every law enforcement agency in Vermont reported complete data to the FBI. If your hometown is safe, but missing from our list, it could be because its law enforcement agency did not report complete data to the FBI and that caused it to be removed from our consideration."

New Hampshire, also a very safe state with none in the Top 100: "When it comes to accurate crime statistics, the FBI Crime Report is considered an excellent source. However, not all New Hampshire cities reported complete data to the FBI."

Virginia, also with lower crime rates and none in the Top 100: "We eliminated all cities with fewer than 3,000 residents as well as any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI."

***

This leads me to believe that NJ probably doesn't have the highest number of "safe" townships/cities, but it does have the most complete reporting to the FBI. Same with PA, MA, and NY.

When the source data is incomplete, the outputs are going to look weird... and that looks to be the case here.

I looked thru the list and it seemed biased but I was too busy to dig. Thanks

 

[T2Kplus10]

Safewise just came out with the 100 safest cities in America.

New Jersey did fantastic with 31 % of all towns. PA, CT and MA all did pretty well.

New Jersey had 31 out of 100, amazing.

Although the site says they use FBI uniform crime info for their report, I believe they must have used towns with over 10,000 in population. This is a sweet spot for N.J.. If they had used cities over 100,000 in population we would have done poorly. If they used populations under 10,000 I am sure many gated communities and tiny towns across the U.S. would have made the list.



Here is the Link: http://www.safewise.com/safest-cities-america

Lots of wonderful towns on that list, my hometown has been on it since they started the ratings. Good residents and a well run police department makes a big impact. NJ has plenty of the most dangerous towns as well, but that's another list and for a different day.

 

[T2Kplus10]

Nice message focusing on what the data actually means based on how they worked the numbers.

So many times you see stories on statistical reports and polls that really do not question how the data was collected and any biases that may exist in the chosen sample.

Well done.

Also, they have a 50 safest cities in NJ list also

These towns and their residents should be very proud.

 

[Jonb127]

Even if I lived in NJ and had a big, big boner for it, which I don't, I would criticize a skewed list like this. Do you seriously think that 31 towns in NJ are safer than any single town in other states? No.

Enjoy reveling in false victory.

So you moved out of NJ and obviously regret it by how intensely your arguing this, so now you're trying to convince yourself and others that NJ sucks. Got it.

 

[FanuSanu52]

Lmao. You'd have to be in a coma to interpret anything I said like that.

 

[RUChoppin]

Well, we at least know that those 31 are very likely the safest towns (10-50K population) in NJ, since it seems pretty clear that NJ has fairly robust crime statistic reporting to the FBI.

 

[NotInRHouse]

Articles like that are not meant to be biblical. Certainly NJ is one of the safer states. Outside of handful of areas, NJ is a safe place.

Sometimes people have a choice of what state they can relocate to, it is more looking at NJ in that lens rather than just declraing superiority.

Of all the things to knock NJ on though, crime really is not a great one.

 

[Upstream]

Have no idea why they label that list "cities" when it's basically all small towns, some of which no one outside of town limits has ever heard of.

They are using FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data (found here: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/u...aw_Enforcement_by_State_by_City_2014.xls/view )

The FBI uses the term "city" to refer to any municipality, regardless of whether it is a city, town, borough, township, village, etc.

As indicated in the OP, they have eliminated any municipality below 10K population from the list. There does not appear to be an upper population limit to the analysis. Larger municipalities don't appear to be on the list because they have higher crime rates.

As far as the completeness of the FBI data, it is what it is. While not 100% complete, it is the most complete data available. And since it is a federal, uniform reporting standard, there should be no regional differences in reporting (other than some municipalities failure to follow the uniform standard).

I agree with the OP, that the domination by NJ towns, and other Northeast municipalities is not a function of bias in the data or how the data is reported. It is a function of the nature of municipalities in the Northeast. With a lot of small (both in terms of population and geography) municipalities, this data hits the sweet spot for NJ. So you have a municipality like Chatham Township making the list. But in other states outside the Northeast, Chatham Township would not be a municipality. It would be incorporated into a bigger municipality that potentially would include Chatham Borough, Madison, Morris Twp, Morristown, etc. With the inclusion of the more urban town centers, this larger municipality would probably not make the list.

Nonetheless, as a whole, the State of New Jersey has some of the lowest crime rates in the country, ranking 3rd lowest in property crime and 14th lowest in violent crime.

 

[RUBigFrank]

Interesting that no NJ shore towns listed - guess the municipal fines assessed for the purpose of revenue kept them off the list.

 

[BoogieKnight]

Laughing that Ridgefield and Bergenfield are in the top 50. This list is funny. (I'm from a town right in between both).

 

[FanuSanu52]

They are using FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data (found here: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/u...aw_Enforcement_by_State_by_City_2014.xls/view )

The FBI uses the term "city" to refer to any municipality, regardless of whether it is a city, town, borough, township, village, etc.

As indicated in the OP, they have eliminated any municipality below 10K population from the list. There does not appear to be an upper population limit to the analysis. Larger municipalities don't appear to be on the list because they have higher crime rates.

As far as the completeness of the FBI data, it is what it is. While not 100% complete, it is the most complete data available. And since it is a federal, uniform reporting standard, there should be no regional differences in reporting (other than some municipalities failure to follow the uniform standard).

I agree with the OP, that the domination by NJ towns, and other Northeast municipalities is not a function of bias in the data or how the data is reported. It is a function of the nature of municipalities in the Northeast. With a lot of small (both in terms of population and geography) municipalities, this data hits the sweet spot for NJ. So you have a municipality like Chatham Township making the list. But in other states outside the Northeast, Chatham Township would not be a municipality. It would be incorporated into a bigger municipality that potentially would include Chatham Borough, Madison, Morris Twp, Morristown, etc. With the inclusion of the more urban town centers, this larger municipality would probably not make the list.

Nonetheless, as a whole, the State of New Jersey has some of the lowest crime rates in the country, ranking 3rd lowest in property crime and 14th lowest in violent crime.

Well, that leads to a headline that doesn't match the content. That list is not made up of cities by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of those are rural or semi-rural small towns, which by their very nature have much lower crime than cities of any size.

I don't really have to argue much because RUChoppin broke it down pretty clearly. Incomplete data. Also, they're not relying solely on FBI stats but combining it "with our own research on each city's public safety, public health, and educational offerings." Which could basically be anything. It's 100 percent clear that they have more data for the northeast, so that's what their formula spit out. The results are so skewed the whole thing should have been scrapped.

Use common sense. One state out of 50 has 31 out of 100 towns and one region has 72 percent? Again, no.

You guys act like there aren't towns in that population range all over the country. And that some of them don't meet the cliche of leaving your door unlocked at night or leaving thousands of dollars worth of tools, sports equipment, etc. unlocked outside without a second thought. There's nowhere in NJ where I would do that. Anecdotal, I know, but enough to make any non-biased individual highly suspicious about the state having 31 percent of the country's safest communities, in whatever population range you want to pick out. Garbage study that would have been dismissed here if it didn't paint NJ in such a wonderful light (seems like virtually everyone that commented dismissed it - for these same reasons). In that vein, it really wasn't great press for NJ, just leading to more people piling on. Great press would have been having a handful of towns, not a literally unbelievable 31.

 

[Upstream]

Well, that leads to a headline that doesn't match the content. That list is not made up of cities by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of those are rural or semi-rural small towns, which by their very nature have much lower crime than cities of any size.

I don't really have to argue much because RUChoppin broke it down pretty clearly. Incomplete data. Also, they're not relying solely on FBI stats but combining it "with our own research on each city's public safety, public health, and educational offerings." Which could basically be anything. It's 100 percent clear that they have more data for the northeast, so that's what their formula spit out. The results are so skewed the whole thing should have been scrapped.

Use common sense. One state out of 50 has 31 out of 100 towns and one region has 72 percent? Again, no.

You guys act like there aren't towns in that population range all over the country. And that some of them don't meet the cliche of leaving your door unlocked at night or leaving thousands of dollars worth of tools, sports equipment, etc. unlocked outside without a second thought. There's nowhere in NJ where I would do that. Anecdotal, I know, but enough to make any non-biased individual highly suspicious about the state having 31 percent of the country's safest communities, in whatever population range you want to pick out. Garbage study that would have been dismissed here if it didn't paint NJ in such a wonderful light (seems like virtually everyone that commented dismissed it - for these same reasons). In that vein, it really wasn't great press for NJ, just leading to more people piling on. Great press would have been having a handful of towns, not a literally unbelievable 31.

I'm not even sure how to respond to your post.

First, I think you are splitting hairs over the city vs municipality terminology. Yes, one meaning of "city" is a town that is larger and a commercial center. But here they are using the meaning of city as municipality to differentiate from county or state.

Second, I am not trying to defend the methodology of the ranking. they provide almost no clues to their methodology. MorrisCounty seems to have correctly suggested that they limited the list to places of greater than 10K population. They mention two FBI crime statistics in their rankings, but give no clue about how they combine these two numbers. They indicate that there are other factors, but give no clue about what these other factors are, or how they are weighted.

Third, I agree with one state having 31% of the towns and one region having 72%, there seems to be some bias. I am just trying to figure out what that bias is. Some in this thread have suggested that the bias is the author being from the northeast, or the underlying data being incomplete or flawed in another way. In the OP, MorrisCounty suggested that the bias is that the filter of only looking at towns greater than 10K population hits a sweet spot for NJ. I agree with this conclusion.

I don't agree that the underlying data is flawed. Even without knowing the other factors going into the rankings, it is clear that the FBI Uniform Crime Report rates for violent and property crimes factors significantly into the rankings. There is no reason to believe that there is a state-by-state or regional bias in the FBI data or that the data is flawed in some way.

The other reason to reject the hypothesis of a flaw in the FBI data is because the bias in the rankings can be easily explained by MorrisCounty's hypothesis that it is the town-size filter that causes the the bias because it hits a sweet spot where there are lots of NJ towns in this range without sizable urban or commercial centers that drive up crime rates.

Let's compare NJ to NC, two fairly equally sized states (with populations of just under 9MM and just over 10MM). The overall crime rates for NJ are somewhat lower than NC: 2.6 vs 3.3 per 1000 for violent crime and 17.3 vs 28.7 for property crime. But both state averages are well over the highest municipal rates of towns in the ranking: 1.7 for violent and 5.9 for property crime.

Now if you look at the municipalities in NJ and NC, New Jersey has 231 municipalities of greater than 10K, while North Carolina has only 76. Even though the population of NC is slightly larger than NJ, it has one-third the number of town that could be included in this ranking (and one-quarter the number of towns in the sweet spot range of 10-50K). That gives them a whole lot opportunity to have towns included. Add in the fact that NJ towns are geographically compact, and many of the towns in the sweet spot range are geographically compact municipalities that are semi-rural without urban or commercial centers.

Of the 231 NJ towns eligible for inclusion in the ranking, 159 have violent crime rates below the 1.7 limit in the ranking and 38 of those also have property crime rates below 5.9 limit in the ranking. In NC, on the other hand, there are only 21 municipalities with violent crime rates lower than the 1.7 limit in the ranking. And there are zero towns in NC, larger than 10K population, with property crime rates below the 5.9 rate in the ranking.

 

[RUChoppin]

I'm not even sure how to respond to your post.

First, I think you are splitting hairs over the city vs municipality terminology. Yes, one meaning of "city" is a town that is larger and a commercial center. But here they are using the meaning of city as municipality to differentiate from county or state.

Second, I am not trying to defend the methodology of the ranking. they provide almost no clues to their methodology. MorrisCounty seems to have correctly suggested that they limited the list to places of greater than 10K population. They mention two FBI crime statistics in their rankings, but give no clue about how they combine these two numbers. They indicate that there are other factors, but give no clue about what these other factors are, or how they are weighted.

Third, I agree with one state having 31% of the towns and one region having 72%, there seems to be some bias. I am just trying to figure out what that bias is. Some in this thread have suggested that the bias is the author being from the northeast, or the underlying data being incomplete or flawed in another way. In the OP, MorrisCounty suggested that the bias is that the filter of only looking at towns greater than 10K population hits a sweet spot for NJ. I agree with this conclusion.

I don't agree that the underlying data is flawed. Even without knowing the other factors going into the rankings, it is clear that the FBI Uniform Crime Report rates for violent and property crimes factors significantly into the rankings. There is no reason to believe that there is a state-by-state or regional bias in the FBI data or that the data is flawed in some way.

The other reason to reject the hypothesis of a flaw in the FBI data is because the bias in the rankings can be easily explained by MorrisCounty's hypothesis that it is the town-size filter that causes the the bias because it hits a sweet spot where there are lots of NJ towns in this range without sizable urban or commercial centers that drive up crime rates.

Let's compare NJ to NC, two fairly equally sized states (with populations of just under 9MM and just over 10MM). The overall crime rates for NJ are somewhat lower than NC: 2.6 vs 3.3 per 1000 for violent crime and 17.3 vs 28.7 for property crime. But both state averages are well over the highest municipal rates of towns in the ranking: 1.7 for violent and 5.9 for property crime.

Now if you look at the municipalities in NJ and NC, New Jersey has 231 municipalities of greater than 10K, while North Carolina has only 76. Even though the population of NC is slightly larger than NJ, it has one-third the number of town that could be included in this ranking (and one-quarter the number of towns in the sweet spot range of 10-50K). That gives them a whole lot opportunity to have towns included. Add in the fact that NJ towns are geographically compact, and many of the towns in the sweet spot range are geographically compact municipalities that are semi-rural without urban or commercial centers.

Of the 231 NJ towns eligible for inclusion in the ranking, 159 have violent crime rates below the 1.7 limit in the ranking and 38 of those also have property crime rates below 5.9 limit in the ranking. In NC, on the other hand, there are only 21 municipalities with violent crime rates lower than the 1.7 limit in the ranking. And there are zero towns in NC, larger than 10K population, with property crime rates below the 5.9 rate in the ranking.

So, the FBI crime rate data they quote on this site doesn't match the FBI crime rate data found on other sites, either. And when looking for the most recent FBI crime rate data, I found this page (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr-statistics-their-proper-use), which essentially says "don't rank locales using this data".

 

[FanuSanu52]

I'm not sure what was confusing? You basically agree that the list is flawed and the methodology cryptic, but choose to come to the conclusion - rather randomly - that the issue lies with the population. Maybe, but I find that very unlikely because NJ doesn't exactly have the market cornered on towns in the 10K to 50K range, nor does it have a monopoly on safe towns. I don't see how a state to state comparison matters - there are enough 10K to 50K towns spread across the country that you would not expect NJ to have a third of the safest ones. More likely the fault lies within the specific data they used.

Whatever is at fault, it's a fairly useless exercise (for the purposes of identifying the 100 safest cities in the country, at least), which was really my only point. I never said NJ is unsafe, just that it doesn't dominate the category like that. Seems silly to celebrate a flawed study just because it happens to make NJ look good.

Not splitting hairs at all, btw. When you open a list of "top 100 cities," you expect to see cities, not places like Washington Township, which no one would call a city. That's why when reputable news outlets put out lists of safest cities, they're made up of .. cities.

FWIW, here's a totally different 100 from another source that appears at least as reputable as Safewise. This one actually comes out like you'd expect: spread out across the country. It's a little California biased (14 out of 100), but much less regionally dense than the OP's list.

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/top100safest/

It's not exclusively 10K to 50K, but plenty of those towns fall in that range.

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

I feel safe anywhere during the day

 

[RUforester72]

Nonsense.

 

[Upstream]

I'm not sure what was confusing? You basically agree that the list is flawed and the methodology cryptic, but choose to come to the conclusion - rather randomly - that the issue lies with the population. Maybe, but I find that very unlikely because NJ doesn't exactly have the market cornered on towns in the 10K to 50K range, nor does it have a monopoly on safe towns. I don't see how a state to state comparison matters - there are enough 10K to 50K towns spread across the country that you would not expect NJ to have a third of the safest ones. More likely the fault lies within the specific data they used.

Whatever is at fault, it's a fairly useless exercise (for the purposes of identifying the 100 safest cities in the country, at least), which was really my only point. I never said NJ is unsafe, just that it doesn't dominate the category like that. Seems silly to celebrate a flawed study just because it happens to make NJ look good.

Not splitting hairs at all, btw. When you open a list of "top 100 cities," you expect to see cities, not places like Washington Township, which no one would call a city. That's why when reputable news outlets put out lists of safest cities, they're made up of .. cities.

FWIW, here's a totally different 100 from another source that appears at least as reputable as Safewise. This one actually comes out like you'd expect: spread out across the country. It's a little California biased (14 out of 100), but much less regionally dense than the OP's list.

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/top100safest/

It's not exclusively 10K to 50K, but plenty of those towns fall in that range.

The list you posted sets the cutoff at municipalities with populations greater than 25K. So the data you are showing actually supports the conclusion that the original list hit a sweet spot for NJ and had they increased the population threshold (or lowered it to include rural areas in different states), NJ would not do as well.

 

[FanuSanu52]

That's an awfully ridiculous leap, given that there are many towns in the 25K to 50K range that appear on the Neighborhood Scout list but not on the Safewise one, and a few NJ towns on the Safewise list over 25K not included on the NS list.

What it shows is that they're entirely different lists derived from different methodologies, one of which has biased results skewed almost entirely to about a third of the US.