A few week’s ago, Movoto identified the happiest places across the U.S. with a population of 40,000 to 61,000, ranked according to “joy-inducing criteria” like income, home ownership, walkability, and other stress-related factors. This week, they’ve compiled the top 10 small towns in the U.S. with populations between 5,000 and 25,000 people, ranked according to data from the 2012 FBI Uniform Crime Report (any place that did not have reported crime data was omitted from their list).
Movoto collected the following crime data for 164 towns in the U.S. (the amount of locations left in the pool): murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft, and vehicle theft.
They then assigned these crimes to four categories:
- Murders
- Violent crimes
- Property crimes
- Total crimes
The first three categories were each weighted at 30 percent, so severe crimes would comprise more of the total score, while total crimes accounted for only 10 percent. Movoto then calculated the chance of crime per 100,000 residents in order to fairly compare towns of all sizes.
The Top 10 Safest Small Towns in America:
Source: Movoto Real Estate
See the full data table or read more about Movoto’s methodology here >>