Naperville is the safest city in America for 2023, according to a study by online personal finance data company MoneyGeek.
The company combined the most recent FBI crime statistics with academic research on the societal costs of different types of crimes to estimate the cost of crime in 263 cities with populations greater than 100,000.
Naperville retained its No. 1 rank as the safest city overall with a crime cost per capita of $156.
The only other city in Illinois to make the top 10 safest overall was Joliet, which ranked No. 8 with crime per capita cost of $247.
On the other end of the spectrum, St. Louis, Missouri, kept its No. 263 ranking and was listed as the most dangerous city, with the highest per capita crime cost of $8,457.
Chicago came in at No. 239, with a crime per capita cost of $4,060.
Among the other cities in Illinois, Aurora ranked No. 81 with an estimated crime cost per capita of $840, Elgin at 117 with $1,135 per capita, Springfield at 185 with $2,105, and Rockford at 213 with $2,779.
No. 2 ranked Sunnyvale, California, also recorded a per capita crime cost of $156, according to the MoneyGeek report.
But the economic and societal costs attributed to Sunnyvale’s crime was $23.8 million slightly higher than Naperville at $23.2 million, the report showed.
By comparison, the economic and societal costs for Chicago are roughly $11 billion.
A 2022 report from David Anderson at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky estimates the total cost of crime in the United States to be between $4.71 trillion and $5.78 trillion annually.
That includes the direct costs of law enforcement, criminal justice and victims’ losses and the indirect costs for things such as private deterrence, fear, and agony, and time lost to avoidance and recovery, the study said.
Aside from the imminent danger of crime, MoneyGeek reports people living in higher crime areas see depressed home values and pay higher prices for crucial needs, including home, renters and auto insurances.
subaker@tribpub.com
