
Parts of Michigan are not very safe: troubled cities such as Detroit and Flint are plagued by high rates of violent crime several times above the national average. However, the Great Lakes State is also home to scores of extremely safe communities.
In fact, 26 Michigan cities scored above a 0.3 on our Safety Index, which measures the safety of a given community based on crime rates and the size of its police force. Let’s take a look at the eight very safe Michigan cities that managed to score above a 0.8 on the Safety Index.
Michigan’s safest community is Grosse Ile Township, comprising twelve islands on the Detroit River. Perhaps island life keeps people living peacefully, as the community of just over 10,000 logged zero violent crimes in 2017.
Michigan’s #2 spot is shared by two communities each earning a high 0.78 Safety Index score: Beverly Hills and Grosse Pointe Park. The two affluent suburbs of Detroit both recorded violent and property crime rates below state and national averages, with Beverly Hills sticking out for its tiny 0.09 violent crimes per 1,000 inhabitants.
Ranking #4 is Berkley, another suburb of Detroit that earned a 0.7 Safety Index score based on a very low violent crime rate of 0.46 per 1,000 and a property crime rate of just 6.79 per 1,000, which is less than half of Detroit’s rate of violent crime.
#5 on the list is Farmington, logging a 0.67 on the Safety Index. The well-to-do Oakland County community notched a mere 4 violent crimes in 2017.
Three more cities in Michigan, Bloomfield Township, Grand Haven and Birmingham, earn the distinction of a 0.6+ Safety Index score, a high guarantee of their relative safety.
Safest Cities in Michigan, 2019
Rank | City | Safety Index |
---|---|---|
1 | Grosse Ile Township | 0.88 |
2 | Beverly Hills | 0.78 |
3 | Grosse Pointe Park | 0.78 |
4 | Berkley | 0.7 |
5 | Farmington | 0.67 |
6 | Bloomfield Township | 0.66 |
7 | Grand Haven | 0.66 |
8 | Birmingham | 0.6 |
9 | Rochester | 0.56 |
10 | Trenton | 0.51 |
11 | Plymouth Township | 0.49 |
12 | Royal Oak | 0.49 |
13 | South Lyon | 0.49 |
14 | Fraser | 0.47 |
15 | Milford | 0.47 |
16 | Grosse Pointe Woods | 0.47 |
17 | West Bloomfield Township | 0.46 |
18 | Troy | 0.41 |
19 | Livonia | 0.39 |
20 | Novi | 0.36 |
21 | Farmington Hills | 0.36 |
22 | New Baltimore | 0.35 |
23 | Clawson | 0.35 |
24 | White Lake Township | 0.32 |
25 | Northville Township | 0.32 |
26 | Hamburg Township | 0.31 |
27 | Shelby Township | 0.27 |
28 | Marquette | 0.27 |
29 | Riverview | 0.26 |
30 | Metro Police Authority of Genesee County | 0.25 |
31 | Ferndale | 0.25 |
32 | Madison Heights | 0.24 |
33 | Fenton | 0.23 |
34 | Canton Township | 0.21 |
35 | Dewitt Township | 0.2 |
36 | Flushing Township | 0.19 |
37 | Escanaba | 0.19 |
38 | Green Oak Township | 0.19 |
39 | Midland | 0.18 |
40 | Davison Township | 0.17 |
41 | St. Clair Shores | 0.16 |
42 | Wyandotte | 0.16 |
43 | Thomas Township | 0.15 |
44 | Lincoln Township | 0.14 |
45 | Bath Township | 0.14 |
46 | Huron Township | 0.14 |
47 | Big Rapids | 0.13 |
48 | Sterling Heights | 0.12 |
49 | Dearborn | 0.1 |
50 | Grand Blanc Township | 0.09 |
51 | East Lansing | 0.09 |
52 | Waterford Township | 0.08 |
53 | Allen Park | 0.07 |
54 | Chesterfield Township | 0.07 |
55 | Wixom | 0.06 |
56 | Pittsfield Township | 0.05 |
57 | Southfield | 0.04 |
58 | Walker | 0.03 |
59 | Auburn Hills | 0.01 |
60 | Mount Pleasant | 0.01 |
61 | Brownstown Township | 0 |
62 | Oak Park | 0 |
63 | Ionia | -0.03 |
64 | Van Buren Township | -0.03 |
65 | Ann Arbor | -0.04 |
66 | Sault Ste. Marie | -0.05 |
67 | Sturgis | -0.05 |
68 | Norton Shores | -0.1 |
69 | Hazel Park | -0.12 |
70 | Holland | -0.13 |
71 | Portage | -0.16 |
72 | Westland | -0.16 |
73 | Saginaw Township | -0.17 |
74 | Meridian Township | -0.19 |
75 | Garden City | -0.2 |
76 | Kalamazoo Township | -0.2 |
77 | Grandville | -0.21 |
78 | Kentwood | -0.22 |
79 | Southgate | -0.24 |
80 | Dearborn Heights | -0.25 |
81 | Coldwater | -0.25 |
82 | Clinton Township | -0.29 |
83 | Monroe | -0.3 |
84 | Alpena | -0.35 |
85 | Genesee Township | -0.37 |
86 | Warren | -0.4 |
87 | Traverse City | -0.41 |
88 | Niles | -0.41 |
89 | Melvindale | -0.46 |
90 | Burton | -0.47 |
91 | Wyoming | -0.48 |
92 | Owosso | -0.5 |
93 | Fruitport Township | -0.5 |
94 | Blackman Township | -0.53 |
95 | Roseville | -0.55 |
96 | Taylor | -0.63 |
97 | Muskegon Township | -0.66 |
98 | Mount Morris Township | -0.73 |
99 | Grand Rapids | -0.73 |
100 | Redford Township | -0.86 |
101 | Emmett Township | -0.89 |
102 | Bay City | -0.9 |
103 | Cadillac | -0.92 |
104 | Lincoln Park | -0.94 |
105 | Muskegon | -0.95 |
106 | Port Huron | -0.99 |
107 | Hamtramck | -1.03 |
108 | Harper Woods | -1.05 |
109 | Romulus | -1.08 |
110 | Ypsilanti | -1.18 |
111 | Eastpointe | -1.2 |
112 | Wayne | -1.23 |
113 | Battle Creek | -1.24 |
114 | Kalamazoo | -1.32 |
115 | Lansing | -1.51 |
116 | Jackson | -1.73 |
117 | Flint Township | -1.76 |
118 | Inkster | -2.15 |
119 | Benton Township | -2.15 |
120 | Saginaw | -2.18 |
121 | Detroit | -2.4 |
122 | Highland Park | -2.82 |
123 | Muskegon Heights | -2.91 |
124 | Flint | -2.91 |
Methodology
We used the most recent FBI crime statistics to create state rankings. There were initially 7,430 cities in the data set. After filtering out the cities with populations of less than 10,000, 2,929 cities remained. We then calculated violent crime rates and property crime rates by dividing the crime numbers by the population to get rates per 1,000. We also calculated the ratio of law enforcement workers to per 1,000. These were weighted with -50% for the violent crime rate, -25% for the property crime rate, and +25% for the law enforcement rate. The resulting metric gave us a the safety index score. The higher this number more safe the city is.
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