Research company Morgan Quinto released its latest “safest and most dangerous cities” rankings today, and overall, the Puget Sound did not fare particularly well. The Associated Press story reprinted in the P-I explains a little bit about how the 371 cities were ranked:
Cities are ranked based on more than just their crime rate, Morgan said. Individual crimes such as rape or burglary are measured separately, compared to national averages and then compiled to give a city its ranking. Crimes are weighted based on their level of danger.
While no city in Washington showed up on the “25 Safest” or “25 Most Dangerous” lists, the only Puget Sound city that managed to break out of the bottom third of the list was Bellevue, at #57. Seattle came in at #262, more dangerous than 70% of the cities that were ranked. Federal Way, Everett, & Kent fared even worse, ranking 277, 283, and 289, respectively. However, in what probably comes as no surprise to most of us, the lowest-ranked city in the Puget Sound (and even the whole state of Washington) was Tacoma, coming in at a miserable 324 (more dangerous than 87% of the ranked cities).
Here’s a table with all the cities from Washington State that were ranked:
| Rank | City |
| 57. | Bellevue, WA |
| 134. | Spokane Valley, WA |
| 188. | Vancouver, WA |
| 220. | Spokane, WA |
| 262. | Seattle, WA |
| 277. | Federal Way, WA |
| 283. | Everett, WA |
| 289. | Kent, WA |
| 304. | Yakima, WA |
| 324. | Tacoma, WA |
I just thought this would be worth pointing out in the context of the “Seattle is a hugely desirable place to live” argument that we frequently hear regarding home prices. For the record, seventeen cities in California ranked higher than Bellevue, our area’s safest city on the list.
Seattle is a nice place to live (I like it here, really!), but I think we would do well to remember that it’s not some kind of perfect paradise.
(Christopher Leonard, Associated Press, 10.30.2006)
(Full Rankings: Associated Press, 10.30.2006)