24/7 Wall St.com ranking looked at various statistics of cities with population over 100,000
Texas Border Business
McAllen is once again being recognized as one of the safest cities in the United States, this time by the website 24/7Wall St., ranking McAllen as number 4 on the list. The website only considered the 294 midsize and large cities tracked by the FBI with populations of at least 100,000. To identify the 50 safest U.S. cities, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed violent crime rates in cities with at least 100,000 people from the FBI’s 2018 Uniform Crime Report. They also considered a 10-year population change, using data from the FBI. Other metrics considered for the ranking were annual unemployment rates, household income, and poverty rates.
“McAllen continues to be recognized as a safe city because it is a safe city,” said McAllen Mayor Jim Darling. “Thanks to the hard work of our McAllen Police Department, crime continues to decline as our city continues to prosper.”
According to the folks at 24/7 Wall St., in 2018, there were just 85 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents in McAllen, less than one-fourth the national violent crime rate of 369 incidents per 100,000 Americans and the least of any midsize to a large city in Texas. There were zero homicides reported in McAllen in 2018.
The cities with the lowest violent crime rates tend to share several other socioeconomic characteristics as well — notably, economic prosperity. Many of these cities have capitalized on existing features — whether that means marketing a natural waterway or vista as a tourist destination — or industries built around a local university. “Successful cities market their assets and build around their assets,” said John Roman, a fellow with NORC at the University of Chicago, when interviewed by 24/7 Wall St. to help explain the data. NORC helps governments, nonprofits, and businesses make better decisions through data and analysis as a non-partisan and objective research company.
With a healthy economy, safe streets, and low cost of living, the population in the vast majority of cities on this list is growing rapidly. “Growing cities tend to grow because they’re perceived as safe and that safety compounds in a virtuous cycle,” Roman said. “Safe places get safer.”
