Safety is a key factor when choosing a neighborhood to buy a home. It can increase demand and drive up property values. Homebuyers can measure how safe a community is by comparing the reported rates of violent crime, property crime, motor vehicle deaths, drug overdose deaths and excessive drinking, among other common indicators, in different areas.
With this in mind, SmartAsset ranked 360 suburbs of major U.S. cities from most to least safe. To help measure the value for the local cost of living, housing affordability in the safest neighborhoods was also considered.
Suburbs are ranked by five safety metrics including crime rates, drug and drinking activity and car accident deaths.
To find the safest suburbs, SmartAsset compared data for 360 places that are within 15 to 45 minutes of the 100 largest U.S. cities by car, that have at least 5,000 residents, by the following metrics:
The vehicular mortality rate, drug poisoning mortality rate and percentage of the population engaging in excessive drinking are all measured at the county level. Violent and property crime rates are at the city level.
To measure the housing affordability of the 35 safest suburbs, we compared them across the following metrics:
This story was produced by SmartAsset and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.