15 Most Dangerous Cities in America For 2023

Although data shows that violent crime rates dropped in cities across the United States last year, crime is an increasing concern among many Americans—whose fears are only likely to grow with incidents like the recent spike in mass shootings. As of January 31, 2023, there have been 52 mass shootings, according to Gun Violence Archive—a massive increase over the same time period in 2022 when there were 34 shootings.

For the third year in a row, MoneyGeek—a personal finance technology company—has issued a list of the most dangerous cities in the US, as well as the safest cities in America. It’s a helpful report to consider, whether you’re traveling or just a concerned citizen.

“The report allows us to see what factors may connect safe and dangerous cities to each other. Readers can also learn a bit of what to expect from visiting or living in different cities,” says Doug Milnes, MoneyGeek’s chief of data analytics. “Being aware of the facts—rather than simply the reputations of different cities—is paramount before a big move or vacationing.”

A new report shows the most dangerous cities in the US—and the safest places.
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MoneyGeek came up with this year’s list by analyzing the FBI’s crime statistics for 2021 (the most recent year of available data), including violent crimes such as murder, rape and aggravated assault, as well as property crimes such as home burglary and motor vehicle theft. The company looked at 263 cities with populations greater than 100,000.

MoneyGeek paired these statistics with academic research on the societal costs of different types of crimes to come up the cost of crime for each city. According to MoneyGeek, the cost of crime per capita in US cities was $1,836—a 6% increase over 2020.

The Economic Impact of Crime

So why should people care about the cost of crime?

“The cost of crime per capita is not only a data point about how much crime happens in a given population, but it also demonstrates the severity of the crimes happening,” says Milnes. “For example, murders and high-level assaults have higher costs than larceny or simple theft. By aggregating each crime into an easily readable stat based on population, we can make broad comparisons about which are the most dangerous cities in the country.”

The economic impact also paints a clearer picture of the dangers in a certain place than just looking at crime rates, which suffer from a grouping problem—since the overall crime rate treats property and violent crime the same. “The cost of crime methodology we’ve utilized takes a cost by each type of crime so that when we report the one number (cost of crime) on a per capita basis, it provides a weighting backed up by academic research on these different crimes,” explains Milnes.

In other words, if MoneyGeek had simply used crime rates, it’s likely they would have arrived at different results due to these differences in weight between the crime rates that the methodology solves for. For instance, the academic research MoneyGeek relied upon uses a cost of crime of about $9 million for murder while larceny is estimated to be around $3,500. “People can disagree on the exact value of a life, but the important part here is to understand the proportionality from this research: murder is 2,571 times worse than larceny,” says Milnes.

Depending on the total budgets of each local area, Milnes says that understanding the cost of crime is important in both how well each state or municipality is managing their crime-stopping efforts.

Another result: “Aside from the imminent danger of crime, people living in higher crime areas see depressed home values and pay higher prices for crucial needs, including home insurance, renters insurance and auto insurance,” says Deb Gordon, a writer for MoneyGeek.

St. Louis was named the most dangerous city in America two years in a row.
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The Most Dangerous Cities in the US

Last year, St. Louis, Missouri was named the most dangerous city in America. This year it was once again named the most dangerous city in the US, with the highest per-capita crime cost on the list—$8,457.

“St. Louis ranks high above the national average in both the cost of violent crimes and property-related crimes locally,” says Milnes. “On the travel side of things, while there are no 100% certain ways of avoiding danger, there are certainly areas that are safer than others. From what we’ve seen from local experts, there are certain areas in the north part of the city that are much more problematic than others.”

Coming in second on the list of the most dangerous cities in America was Mobile, Alabama, followed by Birmingham, Alabama. “Mobile has been consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the country. The property crime rate and violent crime rate there is the highest in the country, only ranking below St. Louis for most dangerous (due to Mobile having less high-cost crimes like murder),” says Milnes. “Mobile and Birmingham both have higher than average crime rates and relatively lower standards of living.”

In its report, MoneyGeek also looked at mass shootings. “Mass shootings are a particular scourge on American life,” says Gordon. “The emotional impact of mass shootings is incalculable, traumatizing families and entire communities.”

Mass shootings also have an economic impact. MoneyGeek calculated the total cost of mass shootings in 2021 to be $8 billion—which is a 33% increase in costs over 2020. According to MoneyGeek’s report, Boulder, Colorado was the worst city in the US for mass shootings, followed by San Jose, California and Indianapolis, Indiana.

The biggest surprise in the report? The lack of big cities on the lists of dangerous places, says Milnes. “The surprises are that from everything you might hear about larger cities on the coasts being quite dangerous, cities like New York and Boston are not as dangerous as their reputations would make you think,” he says.