Study Puts Cary in Top 10 Safest NC Towns

Cary, NC – In a new study, Cary ranks as one of the top 10 safest towns in all of North Carolina, while also standing out as the most populous of the safe towns or cities by far.

Top Ten Safest

A new study by Safewise – an independent home security review website – puts Cary as the ninth-safest town in North Carolina, with fewer than one violent crime per 1,000 people each year. Additionally, there are 10.05 property crimes per 1,000 people, with all the data coming from the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2016.

The study weighs violent crime more heavily, as Cary has a lower property crime rate than several of the towns that rank higher in the study, but it’s violent crime rate is slightly larger. For example, in #8 ranked Fletcher, North Carolina, the property crime rate is more than double it is in Cary but their violent crime rate is 0.91 per 1,000 people compared to 0.92 per 1,000 people in Cary.

Wake County appears to be a magnet for high-ranking towns in this study as Holly Springs ranks as #1 and Apex at #5.

Other Factors

Aside from its high ranking, one of the factors that makes Cary stand out on the list is its population. None of the towns in the top 20 provided by Safewise have a population of more than 100,000 people aside from Cary (the closest is Concord, North Carolina with around 89,000 people).

The study also shows that property crime makes up about 91 percent of all crime in Cary. This does not seem to correlate with any particular level of safety in the study as towns with both larger and smaller proportions rank below Cary, although all of the other top 10 towns have a greater proportion of property crimes with a lower proportion of violent crime.

Speaking of property crimes, the FBI crime data shows that burglary is down in North Carolina by nearly 5 percent while it is also dropping.

Story by staff reports. Photos by Hal Goodtree. Community news sponsored in part by Waverly Place in Cary