The city of South Burlington, Vt.—home to Vermont’s one major airport, Lake Champlain sunsets, and 20,000 residents—has been deemed the Safest City in America by WalletHub, according to its 2024 Safest Cities in America list , released on Oct. 7.
The full top 10 list is as follows: South Burlington, Vt. Casper, Wyo. Warwick, R.
I. Burlington, Vt. Boise, Idaho Yonkers, N.
Y. Cedar Rapids, Iowa Columbus, Md. Portland, Maine Virginia Beach, Va.
To determine its list, WalletHub compared 182 cities—including the 150 most populated U.S. cities, plus at least two of the most populated cities in each state—in three main categories: home and community safety , natural-disaster risk, and financial safety.
“When people think about safety in a city, their minds probably immediately go to things like the crime rate, auto fatality rate or risk of natural disasters,” noted Chip Lupo, WalletHub analyst, in the report. “The safest cities in America protect residents from these threats of bodily harm and property damage, but on top of that, they also help secure people’s financial safety. Financial safety includes things like minimizing the risk of fraud and identity theft , keeping the population employed and insured, and combating homelessness.
” With that in mind, Lupo and others at WalletHub evaluated the three categories using 41 relevant metrics—including traffic fatalities per capita, law-enforcement employees per capita, assaults per capita, hate crimes per capita, n.