Feel Safe in Your City? Several Sources Give Varying Snapshots of Home Security in Texas

You have the peephole in your fancy Texas-style front door. You have the Ring app. You feel fairly secure. But do you truly live in the nation’s safest city?

It depends on what source you go by. Several sources list the safest cities in the U.S.

If you live in North Texas, you’ll really like the CCTV Camera World list of safest cities in America based on the most recent crime data through 2020.

Fort Worth cracked the list of 10 safest big cities based on a population of 500,000 or more. Frisco and McKinney are among the 10 safest mid-sized cities based on a population of 150,000 and 500,000 people.

Head West For Safety

Interestingly, El Paso is regarded as the safest big city. On the whole, U.S. cities saw a combined violent and property crime rate of 2,356.7 per 100,000 people. El Paso had a rate of 1,557.59. Fort Worth doubled El Paso with 3,274.20 per 100K.

In the mid-sized category, Frisco scored 1,057.73 per 100K and McKinney was right behind at 1,057.73 per 100K.

Putting everyone to shame was Wayland, Massachusetts, a city of less than 14,000 west of Boston, which had a rate of 7.22 per 100K people. Bangs, population 1,597 (2019 Census) in Brown County in west-central Texas, was best in Texas and 24th overall nationally with 65.88 per 100K. Other Texas cities include Tioga (44th with 92.51), San Augustine (54th with 107.24), Jourdanton (79th, 134.32), Woodsboro (88th, 142.96), and Collinsville (96th, 150).

CCTV Camera World, based in Alexandria, Va., is a distributor of closed-circuit equipment. According to CCTV Camera World, the total crime rate is all crimes such as violent crimes (murder, rape, assault, etc.) as well as property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson).

Others are also tracking crime stats.

Personal finance website MoneyGeek analyzed stats culled from FBI data from nearly 300 cities to rank the cost of crime per resident. Collin County came out smelling like a rose.

Frisco came in as the fifth-safety city with a per-capita cost of $218. McKinney was 10th at $276, Allen 11th at $276 (must have been rounded up), and Plano 30th ($433). Lewisville was 92nd ($804), Garland (94th), and Richardson 98th ($828). Other North Texas cities: Denton 105th ($903), Irving 118th ($966), Grand Prairie 123rd ($1,020), Arlington 155th ($1,303), Mesquite 183rd ($1,576).

Fort Worth was 211th ($1,968) and Dallas 267th ($2,956).

In October, AdvisorSmith released its list of safest cities, also using FBI data. Allen ranked seventh in midsize cities of 100K to 300K. El Paso was fourth in large cities (300K).

Also in October, WalletHub released a 182-city list and Plano ranked 16th. Grand Prairie came in 72nd, Arlington 89th, Irving 91st, Fort Worth 107th, Garland 145th, Dallas 167th. WalletHub used 44 relevant metrics to determine community safety, natural disaster risk, and financial safety.

So many numbers!

If you want to feel less safe, don’t check out ADTsecurity.com, which also uses FBI data for its list of 25 safest cities. Texas cities are absent from the list.

Whichever study you decide to dive into, just remember it’s a rabbit hole. 🐇