Which is safer: Raleigh, Durham or Charlotte? New study ranks NC cities
Two North Carolina cities are among the 25 safest in the country, a new study shows.
So how do Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte rank?
The safest city in the Tar Heel state is Winston-Salem, which ranks No. 21 nationally, according to the list released Monday from WalletHub.
Raleigh is just behind at No. 22, the results show.
Other major cities are further down the list, with Durham at No. 46 and Charlotte at No. 53.
The rankings come out the same year Durham has had at least 33 homicides, an increase from 30 at this time in 2018, according to police data last updated Nov. 23.
Also, Charlotte has surpassed 100 homicides for the first time since 1993, according to The Charlotte Observer.
The city “has grown rapidly in recent decades, so the per capita rate is unlikely to set a record,” the newspaper reported.
To rank cities, WalletHub says it gave scores based on the risk of natural disasters, community living conditions and crime data. The crime figures come from 2018 and 2019, according to spokesperson Diana Polk.
Raleigh’s highest mark was in the “financial safety” category, which weighed job security, poverty, median credit scores and other measures, the results show.
Earlier this year, the Raleigh suburbs of Apex and Wake Forest were among the top 100 small cities in the United States for “economic health,” which evaluated similar factors, The News & Observer reported.
The most recent study ranked 182 big cities nationwide. Other cities in North Carolina that made the list were Greensboro at No. 60 and Fayetteville at No. 112.
Overall, the top place for safety was Columbia, Maryland. The lowest-scoring location was St. Louis.
This story was originally published December 2, 2019 at 11:15 AM with the headline "Which is safer: Raleigh, Durham or Charlotte? New study ranks NC cities."
