Monday, October 30, 2006

Cities' safety scored: Border, Dallas burbs rank high in Texas

You're probably about as safe living in San Antonio (197) as you are in Tyler (193), according to an annual ranking of US cities based on FBI crime statistics, but you'd be safer living in Austin (158), McAllen (127) or El Paso (114), and the safest place in the state to live would be Round Rock (13).

See the complete national ranking list here, via Talk Left.

No Texas city cracked the top ten US safest places. Houston (325) and Dallas (338) weighed down the bottom of Texas' rankings, while a lot of the Dallas suburbs ranked very high - the six highest ranked Texas cities after Round Rock were all Dallas suburbs: Plano (40), Richardson (61), McKinney (64), Lewisville (69), Carrollton (83), and Garland (97).

Roughneck Odessa (104) came in safer than swankier Midland (131), while border towns like Laredo (161) and Brownsville (119) tended to be a lot safer than places you think of as much tamer areas, including Wichita Falls (232), Lubbock (233), Amarillo (235), Waco (266), or Longview (306).

Like TChris at TalkLeft, I'm not sure how much such statistics mean, but check out where your city's ranked for whatever it's worth.

5 comments:

Mike Howard said...

Wehew! Go Dallas...we rank higher than all of ya'll! Wait, that's bad? Damn!

Catonya said...

yikes - Wichita Falls didn't fare so well.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

"Wichita Falls didn't fare so well."

Whaddya mean, Cat, it's better than Lubbock! ;)

Really casts a different light on all the hyped border crime, doesn't it? A lot to think about, perhaps, as far as what it means for state law enforcement deployment, grants to sheriffs at the border, etc.

Michael Davis-Dallas Progress said...

McAllen is pretty but I remember a few years back being surrounded by McAllen's finest a couple of years ago and them trying to "talk" me into a charge even though I did nothing. I'll take Dallas.

Dallas isn't as safe because our police are stretched thin b/c a lot of elected officials are busy talking about crime and doing little about it.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Here's one I've never understood: Dallas has actual public safety problems yet their offficers AGGRESSIVELY write jaywalking tickets downtown - misplace resources much? They also spend a big chuk of their staff time chasing false burglar alarms, as I recall.