{"id":217238,"date":"2026-04-03T09:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217238\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T09:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:05:12","slug":"experts-say-this-may-be-floridas-most-dangerous-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217238\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts say this may be Florida\u2019s most dangerous city"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 WalletHub has released its list of the safest cities in the U.S.<\/a> \u2014 and one Florida locale is just a couple of spots from the bottom.<\/p>\n

To figure out what constitutes the \u201csafest\u201d areas, WalletHub\u2019s team examined over 180 cities using factors like crime rates, traffic crashes, natural disaster risks, and financial security.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safest cities in America protect residents from these threats of bodily harm and property damage,\u201d WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo wrote. \u201cBut on top of that, they also help secure people\u2019s financial safety…(which) includes things like minimizing the risk of fraud and identity theft, keeping the population employed and insured, and combating homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

[BELOW: Check out Florida\u2019s top-ranked employers]<\/p>\n

Nationwide, the safest city was determined to be South Burlington in Vermont, though cities like Casper, Wyoming; and Warwick, Rhode Island came in second and third, respectively.<\/p>\n

In the Sunshine State, the top-ranked city turned out to be Port St. Lucie, which placed high at No. 32 overall. It scored especially well in terms of home and community safety.<\/p>\n

But all the way on the other end of the spectrum sits Ft. Lauderdale, which came in at No. 180 \u2014 just two spots from the bottom-ranked metro of Memphis, Tennessee.<\/p>\n

While Ft. Lauderdale scored poorly across every main category, it actually tied for the worst city in terms of traffic fatalities per capita.<\/p>\n

The full ranking of Florida cities on this year\u2019s ranking is as follows:<\/p>\n

RankCityScoreBest Category32Port St. Lucie65.20Home & Community Safety53Hialeah62.63Home & Community Safety59Cape Coral61.88Home & Community Safety73Pembroke Pines60.01Home & Community Safety101St. Petersburg56.55Natural-Disaster Risk116Tampa55.13Home & Community Safety124Miami54.60Home & Community Safety130Tallahassee53.97Home & Community Safety164Jacksonville43.00Natural-Disaster Risk168Orlando42.05Natural-Disaster Risk180Ft. Lauderdale36.06Home & Community Safety<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the categories used in this study break down as follows:<\/p>\n

Home & Community Safety (60%) <\/p>\n

Presence of terrorist attacks<\/p>\n

Number of mass shootings<\/p>\n

Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita<\/p>\n

Forcible rapes per capita<\/p>\n

Assaults per capita<\/p>\n

Thefts per capita<\/p>\n

Sex offenders per capita<\/p>\n

Law enforcement employees per capita<\/p>\n

Active firefighters per capita<\/p>\n

EMTs and paramedics per capita<\/p>\n

Hate crimes per capita<\/p>\n

Share of sheltered homeless<\/p>\n

Perception of safety<\/p>\n

Drug poisoning deaths per capita<\/p>\n

Traffic deaths per capita<\/p>\n

Pedestrian deaths per capita<\/p>\n

Road quality<\/p>\n

Natural-Disaster Risk (20%)<\/p>\n

Earthquake Risk Index Score<\/p>\n

Riverine Flood Risk Index Score<\/p>\n

Hail Risk Index Score<\/p>\n

Hurricane Storm-Surge Risk Index Score<\/p>\n

Tornado Risk Index Score<\/p>\n

Wildfire Risk Index Score<\/p>\n

Financial Safety (20%)<\/p>\n

Underemployment rate<\/p>\n

Unemployment rate<\/p>\n

Share of uninsured population<\/p>\n

Share of uninsured drivers<\/p>\n

Foreclosure rate<\/p>\n

Median credit score<\/p>\n

Debt-to-income ratio<\/p>\n

Share of owner-occupied housing units spending at least 35% of their household income on housing<\/p>\n

Poverty rate<\/p>\n

Fraud and other complaints per capita<\/p>\n

Identity-theft complaints per capita<\/p>\n

Share of unbanked households<\/p>\n

Job security<\/p>\n

Employment growth<\/p>\n

Share of households with emergency savings<\/p>\n

Retirement plan access and participation rate<\/p>\n

Personal bankruptcy filings per capita<\/p>\n

Share of seriously underwater mortgages<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 WalletHub has released its list of the safest cities in the U.S. \u2014 and one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[209,265,6919,28,30,29,785,3502,225,116,123,2159,1335,139,6920,171,199,232,135,221],"class_list":{"0":"post-217238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-features","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-florida-ranked","15":"tag-ft-lauderdale","16":"tag-hialeah","17":"tag-jacksonville","18":"tag-miami","19":"tag-money","20":"tag-orange-county","21":"tag-orlando","22":"tag-pembroke-pines","23":"tag-port-st-lucie","24":"tag-st-petersburg","25":"tag-tallahassee","26":"tag-tampa","27":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}