These are the safest small towns and cities in every state: report

(NEXSTAR) – Small towns have a reputation for tight-knit communities, charm and safety. At least one in every state lives up to the last part of the stereotype, an updated analysis finds.

MoneyGeek, a personal finance site, had researchers analyze last year’s FBI crime data of smaller towns and cities where the population is between 30,000 and 100,000. They used the crime data to calculate the cost of crime in each area.

The cost of crime includes impacts to victims, like the loss of stolen property and medical bills, MoneyGeek explained, as well as the cost to the justice system. Violent crimes typically result in a higher cost than nonviolent crimes, MoneyGeek said.

Many of the safest small communities, according to last year’s crime data, are found in the Northeast. Monroe Township, a New Jersey community about 50 miles from Manhattan, ranked No. 1 thanks to its low property crime and even lower violent crime rate.

In the No. 2 spot was another New Jersey community not too far away from the first: Hillsborough Township.

Wallingford, Connecticut; Shrewsbury, Massachusetts; Westfield, New Jersey; Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania; and Princeton, New Jersey also all made the top 10.

Outside the northeast, Zionsville, Indiana; Mason, Ohio; and Lone Peak, Utah all scored highly.

And for all the talk of crime rates in California’s larger cities, the Golden State had two cities in the top 15: Rancho Santa Margarita in Orange County and Danville, a suburb in the Bay Area.

MoneyGeek also broke down the data to find the small town or city with the lowest cost of crime in every state. See the results for all 50 states in the chart below:

City	State	Crime Cost per Capita
Alabaster	Alabama	$245
Juneau	Alaska	$2,164
San Luis	Arizona	$113
Bella Vista	Arkansas	$509
Rancho Santa Margarita	California	$81
Windsor	Colorado	$81
Wallingford	Connecticut	$55
Newark	Delaware	$546
Oviedo	Florida	$202
Milton	Georgia	$155
Rexburg	Idaho	$550
Mundelein	Illinois	$148
Zionsville	Indiana	$51
Urbandale	Iowa	$207
Leawood	Kansas	$301
Elizabethtown	Kentucky	$254
Bossier City	Louisiana	$2,976
Bangor	Maine	$478
Bowie	Maryland	$205
Shrewsbury	Massachusetts	$59
Bloomfield Township	Michigan	$112
Cottage Grove	Minnesota	$186
Southaven	Mississippi	$593
Ballwin	Missouri	$91
Bozeman	Montana	$1,092
Bellevue	Nebraska	$723
Dover	New Hampshire	$121
Monroe Township, Middlesex County	New Jersey	$31
Carlsbad	New Mexico	$1,410
Yorktown Town	New York	$85
Fuquay-Varina	North Carolina	$152
West Fargo	North Dakota	$415
Mason	Ohio	$65
Owasso	Oklahoma	$371
Lake Oswego	Oregon	$257
Cranberry Township	Pennsylvania	$78
South Kingstown	Rhode Island	$161
Fort Mill	South Carolina	$153
Rapid City	South Dakota	$2,164
Collierville	Tennessee	$298
Flower Mound	Texas	$136
Lone Peak	Utah	$66
Burlington	Vermont	$2,309
Blacksburg	Virginia	$397
Pullman	Washington	$268
Huntington	West Virginia	$2,754
New Berlin	Wisconsin	$116
Laramie	Wyoming	$664

Not every small town is a bastion of safety, the study found. Monroe, Louisiana, for example had a higher cost of crime in 2022 than the vast majority of large cities.

A massive data dump of 11 million criminal offenses reported to the FBI, released in October, showed that while violent crime dropped nationwide in 2022, property crime jumped.

In 2022, violent crime overall, which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, dropped modestly. Violent crime was 1.7% lower in 2022 than in 2021, the FBI said.

The murder rate, in particular, dropped significantly. It saw a 6.1% decline between 2021 and 2022.

But on the flip side, property crimes actually rose 7.1% in 2022 after years of decline. A large jump in motor vehicle theft contributed to the rise in reported property crimes.

For its analysis, MoneyGeek wasn’t able to use FBI crime data for small towns and cities in Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania. For those states, MoneyGeek’s researchers pulled data from local city police departments.