Downtown Cary

New Study Ranks Cary as Safest Town in the Country

Cary, NC – Cary has topped lists of safest towns and cities in North Carolina in the past but a new study finds Cary is not just the safest in the state but the safest municipality in the entire United States.

Safest in the Country

In a new study by HomeSnacks, a real estate data ranking website based in Durham, Cary ranks as the safest place to live of any town with a population of 100,000 or more. Using data from the FBI’s 2017 Uniform Crime Report, the HomeSnacks study looked at both violent and property crimes per capita in each of the studied municipalities.

“For example, there were a total of 1,902 crimes committed in Cary which had a reported population of 166,986,” the study said. “That means the number of crimes per capita is 0.0114 which translates into a one-in-87 chance of being the victim of a crime.”

Cary ranks second for least amount of violent and property crime, while Irvine, California is the lowest for violent crime and Yonkers, New York is the lowest for property crime (Yonkers came in 50th overall, with more than 400 violent crimes reported in the FBI Uniform Crime Report).

No other North Carolina municipalities made the top 100 in the HomeSnacks study.

Cary Safety

Graphic from HomeSnacks

Specific Cary Data

Last year, Cary ranked second for the top 10 safest municipalities in this HomeSnacks study. Based on the latest crime data in Cary, statistically, someone living in town has a one-in-1,560 chance of being the victim of a violent crime.

For the city that HomeSnacks ranked as least safe – St. Louis, Missouri – that probability is one-in-30.

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the most common type of crime committed in Cary (as far as crimes the report measures) from the latest available year was larceny-theft.

HomeSnacks also ranks municipalities based on other factors related to real estate. Cary gets a 9.5/10 for education and amenities and a 9/10 for jobs, housing, affordability and diversity but only an 8/10 for commute and affordability. The study also gives Cary an 8.5/10, but considering Cary was ranked the safest out of more than 200 cities with populations above 100,000, that 8.5 must go pretty far.

Downtown Cary


Story by staff reports. Photos by HomeSnacks and Hal Goodtree.

5 replies
  1. Hans
    Hans says:

    I grew up in St. Louis and live in Cary.

    Cary doesn’t have a baseball team. Go Cardinals!

    • Brent
      Brent says:

      Cary has USA Baseball. I’d rather live in the safest place than the most crime-ridden place.

  2. Johnny j
    Johnny j says:

    While I agree that Cary is very safe, you should take anything said by the creators of this “study” with a grain of salt. Read up on Chris Kolmar and Nick Johnson, creators of Home Snacks and other click bait sites such as “Road snacks”. Funny stuff, but not exactly credible research. Sites are designed to capture attention and cash in on ad clicks.

    • Alan
      Alan says:

      The study used FBI Uniform Crime Reports. I guess the FBI stats could be bogus, but not likely.

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