Report: SJ ranks in bottom half of large American cities in terms of safety

 

Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

According to Forbes, MoneyGeek's fifth annual report on the safest cities in America (2025 report) places SJ 159th out of 315 municipalities, behind San Diego, Anaheim, Irvine, and Riverside in CA alone. 

Moneygeek analyzes FBI crime data alongside the economic costs associated with crime, to give a comprehensive look at urban safety.

Besides violent crime (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault), the methodology also considers property crime, including burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft, making the report useful whether you’re traveling or looking for a new place to live.

MoneyGeek also ranked the safest large cities, looking at places with populations over 300,000. Irvine, California, leads this list, with a crime cost per capita of $324, making it not only the safest large city but also the third safest city overall.

“Irvine, California, moved up three spots from last year and is the safest large city due to a drop in the cost of crime per capita,” says Moneygeek. “Even while per capita crime rates rose slightly, declines in murder, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft offenses reported kept the overall cost of crime to society lower.”

These are the safest cities in the U.S. with a population over 300,000:

  1. Irvine, California

  2. Honolulu, Hawaii

  3. Virginia Beach, Virginia

  4. Henderson, Nevada

  5. San Diego, California

  6. Lexington, Kentucky

  7. Santa Ana, California

  8. El Paso, Texas

  9. Riverside, California

  10. Mesa, Arizona

  11. Anaheim, California

  12. Arlington, Texas

  13. New York City

  14. Raleigh, North Carolina

  15. Boston

{Editor's note San Jose ranked 159 out of 315 U.S. cities in terms of safety in the report.}

Another takeaway from MoneyGeek’s report is that the cost of crime per capita has decreased. In 2023 (the most recent year of available data), the average cost of crime per capita in U.S. cities was $2,178, with violent crime accounting for the majority of these costs. The was a slight drop from the previous year when it was $2,221.

This decline reflects national trends, as both violent and property crime rates have also been falling.“On average, across the cities that qualified for analysis this year and last, the cost of crime went down by $9,” says Moneygeek. “More cities had violent crime and property crime per capita declines than those with increases. National data from the FBI suggests similar trends, as well.”

Read the whole thing here.

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