Fishers, Zionsville gain high marks in survey of safe US cities
FISHERS, Ind. (WISH) — The Indiana city of Fishers ranked as the second-safest city in the nation and nearby Zionsville ranked third in a MoneyGeek survey.
MoneyGeek did two different surveys, for large and small communities. Zionsville fell under the small cities category and ranked No. 3 of 1,000 cities surveyed.
Westfield came in at 72nd; Brownsburg, 78th, West Lafayette, 142nd; and Valparaiso, 148th.
Fishers finished second only behind Thousand Oaks, California, as the safest city in America with a population of 100,000 or more; 302 cities were surveyed. Indianapolis ranked 274th.
Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness said, “I think at a base level we want to do work and we want to live in places where we don’t have to fear for our safety either from a criminal element or otherwise.”
The Republican mayor of the city of about 102,000 residents credited its ranking to assuring areas of his community did not fall into decline.
MoneyGeek analyzed FBI crime data to determine each city’s ranking. It also looked at how much crime cost per capita. The cost for Fishers was $296 per capita, while Zionsville, with about 32,000 residents, ranked at $51 per capita.
Anja Solum, data journalism manager for MoneyGeek, said, “It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s costing a person, tangibly, out of their pocket $51, but that’s sort of the impact of crime in that city compared to some of the other small cities and towns that we compared.”
The study found residents of cities with higher crime rates often paid more for car, homeowner’s and renter’s insurance.
