Pittsburgh Suburb Ranked Among America's Safest Municipalities

PITTSBURGH, PA - A new analysis has ranked the nation’s 100 safest municipalities and Bethel Park in Pittsburgh’s South Hills 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 found that 37 percent of the nation’s safest places reside in just two states: Massachusetts and Illinois, which had 19 and 18 cities on the list, respectively.

Bethel Park was the 88th safest municipality in the country, with a crime index of 65 out of 100, with 100 being the safest. It was the only municipality in southwestern Pennsylvania to make the list.

In 2016, the most recent year that complete data was available, there were 25 violent crimes in the borough: 7 robberies and 18 assaults. That put a person’s chances of being a violent crime victim in Bethel Park at 1 in 1,276 compared to the state rate of 1 in 316.

Bethel PArk also had 29 burglaries, 289 thefts and 3 motor vehicle thefts in 2016. That places a person’s chances of being a victim of being a victim of property crime at 1 in 101; the state odds are 1 in 57.

The safest place 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 in 2016.

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 from the most recent final data available. For this 2018 report, the figures are based on 2016 statistics.

Patch reporter Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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