Dallas did not fare well in a recent study by WalletHub examining U.S. cities to determine which are safest. The WalletHub ranking assessed 182 major cities, looking for “key indicators of safety,” and Dallas placed No.166.
WalletHub looked at the 150 most populated cities in the U.S., along with at least two of the most populated from each state.
For its “2022 Safest Cities in America” rankings, WalletHub used 42 indicators grouped into three major categories: Home and Community Safety, Natural Disaster Risk, and a category referred to as Financial Safety.
To calculate Financial Safety, WalletHub took into account the unemployment rate, foreclosure rate, poverty rate, job security, and retirement plan access and participation rate.
Natural Disaster Risk assessed the subsets of earthquake, flood, hail, hurricane, tornado, and wildfire risk.
Some of the factors considered in the Home and Community ranking were thefts per capita, assaults per capita, traffic fatalities per capita, and the percentage of residents vaccinated against COVID-19.
Dallas’ ranking in the Home and Community Safety category was even worse than its overall score, with the city coming in at No.172 out of 182 cities.
Columbia, Maryland, ranked in first place for Home and Community Safety, while Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ranked last.
For Natural Disaster Risk, Dover, Delaware, came in first, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, came in last; Dallas was ranked No.104 of 182. For Financial Safety, Juneau, Alaska, was in first place, and Memphis, Tennessee, took last; Dallas was again nearer the bottom than the top at No.121 of 182.
Only one DFW metro city, Irving, made the overall top 50, coming in at 49. Grand Prairie ranked at 55, Plano at 79, Arlington at 95, Fort Worth at 129, and Garland at 132.
Columbia, Maryland, ranked at the top of the list, followed by Nashua, New Hampshire, in second. Among those cities at the bottom was St. Louis, Missouri, at dead last.
Columbia, Maryland is not in New England. It is a mid-Atlantic state. New England consists of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.