WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — When relocating to the suburbs, people consider many factors to ensure they have a good quality of life. SmartAsset used some of those key factors in comparing 370 suburbs of the 100 largest cities in the U.S. From the data it compiled, SmartAsset ranked the safest suburbs.
Two of them in the DMV made the Top 5.
Great Falls, Va. ranked first and Bethesda, Md. ranked third. Rounding things out were three Indiana suburbs.
Each suburb in the rankings has at least 5,000 residents. Four categories were measured, using rates per 100,000 residents:
- Violent crime rate
- Property crime rate
- Vehicular mortality rate
- Drug poisoning mortality rate
An additional category looked at the percentage of the population engaging in excessive drinking based on information from the 2022 County Health Rankings.
The data on violent crime rate and property crime rate was obtained from the FBI’s 2021 Uniform Crime Reporting Database. Any missing crime data was provided by NeighborhoodScout.com.
The data for vehicular mortality rate and drug poisoning mortality rate was obtained from the 2022 County Health Rankings.
Violent and property crime rates were measured at the city level. Vehicular and drug poisoning mortality rates, along with excessive drinking adults, were measured at the county level.
Great Falls’ rank recognizes it as top suburb for overall safety. It also has the second-lowest violent crime rate.
Bethesda had the 10th-lowest percentage of 14.57% of adults that engage in excessive drinking.
Along with Great Falls and Bethesda, SmartAsset ranked Rockville, Md. relatively high. Although it didn’t break the Top 10, it came in at Number 12 on the list of safest suburbs.
