Real estate blog Movoto has released a list of what it considers the 50 most dangerous places in the United States. While no California cities made the list of top 10, Santa Monica was one of four municipalities in the state that ranked 11 through 25.
Santa Monica was ranked as the 24th most dangerous suburb in the United States, according to the Movoto list.
A content editor with Movoto who authored the blog post based his findings on the number of crimes per 100,000 people within four distinct categories for each city. Those categories were murder, violent crimes, property crimes, and total crimes. He analyzed 120 suburbs across the country.
Data for murder, violent crime, and total crimes were each weighted for 30 percent of a city’s total score. The other 10 percent accounted for total crimes. After the average of the weighted scores were determined, the author – Randy Nelson – ranked each city from most dangerous to not as dangerous.
According to Nelson’s published rankings, Santa Monica, with a population of 91,215, crime rates per 100,000 residents were two for murder, 433 for violent crimes, 3,725 for property crimes, and 4,158 for total crimes.
Residents in Santa Monica have a 1 in 45,607 chance of being murdered and a 1 in 225 chance of experiencing a violent crime, according to the rankings. The chance of experiencing any crime in Santa Monica is 1 in 24.
Compare that to Camden, New Jersey – which ranked the second most dangerous suburb in the United States – where the chance of a resident being murdered is 1 in 1,159 and the chance of experiencing a violent crime is 1 in 39. The overall chance of being a victim of crime in Camden was 1 in 13, according to the Movoto list.
Other Southern California suburbs on the list included Signal Hill (ranked 13), Inglewood (18), Oceanside (33), Escondido (35), and Lomita (44). Two Northern California suburbs also made the list, including Berkeley (15) and Roseville (48).
Ranking at the top of the list as the most dangerous suburb in the United States was East Point, Ga., which is just outside Atlanta. East Point residents have a 1 in 8 chance to experience any crime and a 1 in 2,930 chance to be the victim of a murder.
Interestingly enough, the chance of crime in Santa Monica (1 in 24) was ranked higher than Inglewood (1 in 32) and Lomita (1 in 42), but lower than the Long Beach suburb of Signal Hill (1 in 19).
For the complete blog post, list of suburbs, and explanation of methodology, visit www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/dangerous-suburbs.
