Which City Ranked Safest in Bay Area 2022?
Last week, WalletHub released its 2022 report on America’s Safest Cities.
For years, no Bay Area city even made it to the top 25! Why is that? Well, this hinges on the balance of the 42 metrics used to assess safety—not just property and personal safety, but also things like financial safety and natural disaster risk.
According to WalletHub, “Our data set ranges from the percentage of residents who are fully vaccinated and assaults per capita to the unemployment rate and road quality.”
So, with that in mind, the safest Bay Area city is… Fremont! Fremont has been moving up the rankings in recent years, coming in at #30 overall out of 180 in 2019. Here’s the breakdown:
Fremont:
Overall rank: 17
Total score: 79.98
Home and community safety: 10
Natural disaster risk: 157
Financial Safety: 5
So what does this mean for buyers looking to make Fremont their home? Well, it ranks 10th overall in Home & Community Safety, passed only by some smaller communities, and other California cities: Irvine, Santa Clarita, and Glendale.
Fremont also ranked extremely high in Financial Safety, coming in at #5, with San Francisco just above it at #4, and San Jose at #6. This stat is calculated by analyzing job growth, unemployment, poverty, debt-to-income ratios, median credit score, foreclosure rates, and other info. (Interestingly, Juneau, Alaska came in first in financial safety!)
Unfortunately, natural disaster risk is where nearly all California cities fall down in the WalletHub rankings. Wildfire and earthquake risks were heavily weighted! Oddly, overall climate change patterns, heat risk and drought risk do not seem to have been considered at all.
Luckily, these metrics are just for fun, and should be taken with a grain of salt! We still think Fremont is an excellent place to live.