L’burg ranked 9th for safety
Lynchburg took number nine for mid-sized cities in the seventh annual Most Secure U.S. Places to Live study.
The Farmers Insurance Group conducted the study in 379 U.S. municipalities, according to a news release. The cities are divided into three categories based on population: Large metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 people, mid-sized cities with between 150,000 to 500,000 residents and small towns with a population of 150,000 or fewer.
“Farmers congratulates all of the communities recognized in the 2010 annual Farmers Most Secure Places to Live survey,” Farmers Insurance Group CEO Robert Woudstra said in a news release. “In today’s challenging economy, citizens look to their local governments to keep their communities secure and economically strong.”
The study considered crime statistics, extreme weather, risk of natural disasters, housing depreciation, foreclosures, air quality, terrorist threats, environmental hazards, life expectancy and job loss numbers, according to the news release by Farmers.
Information is gathered in databases by experts from www.bestplaces.net and processed to determine which cities rank in the top 20 for security.
For the fifth year in a row Lynchburg has ranked in the top 20, according to an article in the News & Advance. The highest Lynchburg has been ranked so far is sixth in 2006 and the lowest was 12th in 2007, the article said. Lynchburg was ranked seventh in 2009.
In the 2010 study, the only other Virginian region to make it into the rankings is the Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford area. Together, they held the 19th position in the small towns category. Charlottesville came in 13th for mid-sized cities and Harrisonburg came in 13th for small towns in 2009.
The top 10 most secure mid-sized cities for 2010 are Olympia, Wash., followed by Sioux Falls, S.D., Bellingham, Wash., Kennewick-Richland-Pasco, Wash., Fargo, N.D. and Moorhead, Minn. came in, Rochester, Minn., Duluth, Minn. and Superior, Wis., Binghamton, N.Y., Lynchburg and Burlington, Vt.