This North Carolina town ranks among nation’s safest places to live. Here’s why
North Carolina is home to one of the nation’s safest places to live, a new report finds.
The town of Cary, just west of Raleigh, tied in the No. 7 spot on a list of cities offering lower crime and safety risks, according to results published April 8.
To come up with the rankings, the personal finance website SmartAsset said it studied “200 of the largest U.S. cities.” Using resources from the federal government and the University of Wisconsin’s County Health Rankings initiative, officials studied 2020 and 2021 data for violent and property crimes; traffic and drug-related deaths; and drinking habits.
Cary was the only city outside of California and Texas to rank in the top 10. The North Carolina town tied in 7th place with Santa Clara, California, where several technology companies have a presence.
Among the all cities considered, Cary has some of the lowest crime rates. It also ranks toward the the top half of the pack when it comes to risks related to driving, drugs and excessive alcohol use, according to figures that SmartAsset shared with McClatchy News.
“While Cary ranks seventh overall for safety, it’s also No. 1 for affordability among the 200 cities we included in our analysis,” officials said in their report. “Median annual housing costs ($17,304) ... are just 16.28% of the median household income ($106,304).”
But recently, some renters have struggled to make ends meet as prices rise in Cary and beyond, The News & Observer reported.
Cary — home to roughly 175,000 people — isn’t a stranger to earning national recognition.
In March 2021, SmartAsset named the town among the nation’s top destinations for millennials. It received that nod after analysts studied population trends to determine where people ages 25 to 39 were moving, McClatchy News reported.
On the latest list, the cities ranking ahead of Cary were Frisco, Texas; McKinney, Texas; Santa Clarita, California; Sunnyvale, California; Glendale, California; and McAllen, Texas.
The only other North Carolina city to make it into the top 35 was neighboring Raleigh, which tied at No. 26 with Huntington Beach and Simi Valley in California.
This story was originally published April 13, 2022 at 12:32 PM with the headline "This North Carolina town ranks among nation’s safest places to live. Here’s why."
