100 Safest Small Towns in America 2019

Small towns may bring to mind white picket fences, baseball, and Grandma’s apple pie. They evoke nostalgia for a simpler time when the streets were safe and people rarely (if ever) locked their doors.

While some of those sepia-tinted ideas have faded away (and several small towns are close neighbors to sprawling metro areas), the notion of safety in small towns is alive and well. Our list of the 100 safest small towns in America is all the proof you need—not one violent crime was reported among all the cities that made our list.

As part of our never-ending quest to provide the most comprehensive and current safety-related resources, we expanded our Safest Cities in America series to examine safety in cities of differing sizes.

In the past, we lumped these smaller communities in with our overall 100 Safest Cities in America—but we decided to pull them out this year and take a closer look at safety in cities with 2,500 to 15,000 residents.

Six of these smaller towns were recognized last year, including Lewisboro Town, New York, which was the safest city in the country in 2018. Lewisboro held on to its number one ranking this year, but as the safest town among other cities of comparable size.

On top of a completely clean record for violent crime, 97% of these towns reported fewer than 50 property crimes. The city with the highest property crime rate is Baltimore, Ohio, with 5.38 incidents per 1,000 people (compared to 27.11 nationally). And the top five cities each reported just one property crime.

Every region of the country is represented by the safest small towns, but just barely. The West had only one town make the top 100—Monte Sereno, California, which sits at number 52 on our list. Nearly half of the country is home to one of America’s safest small towns, with 24 states making a showing. Pennsylvania has the highest number of safe small towns with 19, and New Jersey is a close second with 18.

• All 100 towns had zero incidents of violent crime, but there were no towns with zero incidents of property crime.
• Property crimes ranged from one to 61, with 97 towns reporting fewer than 50.
• Although the top five cities all reported one property crime, Lewisboro Town had the lowest property crime rate at 0.08 incidents per 1,000 people.
• Ohio was home to both the highest property crime rate (5.38 in Baltimore) and the highest number of reported property crimes (61 in Montville Township).
• 91% of the cities had fewer than five property crimes occur per 1,000 people.
• 31% had fewer than two property crime incidents per 1,000 people.
• The South is home to 11 of the safest small towns, and the Midwest claims 26.
• The majority of the cities (72) are above the national median income of $57,652.^¹
• 34 cities have a median household income over $100,00 a year and three are more than $200,000.
• 14% of the cities have median household incomes below $50,000. Both Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, and Portageville, Missouri, have median household incomes below $30,000.
• New York is home to the most affluent cities on our list—Bronxville Village, Oyster Bay Cove Village, and Sands Point Village each have median household incomes over $200,000.
• Fewer people doesn’t always equal less crime—just 7% of the towns on our list come from states with lower population density. On the other hand, 67% come from the top ten states for population density.
• New Jersey is number one in the country for population density and has the second-highest number of safe small towns.
• Twelve of the states represented are in the top 50% of the country for high poverty rates. Interestingly, both the most impoverished state (Louisiana) and the least (New Hampshire) are home to some of the nation’s safest small towns.