{"id":392673,"date":"2026-07-30T22:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/392673\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T22:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:44:10","slug":"this-north-texas-city-ranks-among-the-safest-in-america-report-says-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/392673\/","title":{"rendered":"This North Texas city ranks among the safest in America, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plano earned the No. 2 spot in a national ranking of the safest big cities<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and the top spot in the Lone Star State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Financial technology company SmartAsset ranked 83 U.S. cities<\/a> with populations of 250,000 or more, evaluating violent crime, property crime, traffic fatality rates and natural disaster risk.<\/p>\n

In first place on the 2026 list is Virginia Beach, Va. After Plano<\/a>, the next safest city in Texas is Laredo at No. 6.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Safety is the foundation for everything. It allows families to thrive<\/a>, businesses to invest and our community to grow in Plano<\/a>,” said Mayor John Muns in his state of the city address earlier this year. “We take this responsibility seriously.”<\/p>\n

The company’s study also found Texas is home to some of America’s safest and least safe cities. It was the only state with cities among both the 10 safest\u00a0\u2014 Plano and Laredo\u00a0\u2014 and the 10 least safe\u00a0\u2014 Dallas and Houston.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related: Plano approves drone-first emergency response program, joining other North Texas cities<\/a><\/p>\n

Dallas ranked No. 73, and Houston No. 82. In last place came Memphis, Tenn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ranking measured natural disaster risk based on FEMA’s National Risk Index and traffic fatality rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to SmartAsset researcher Toby Nelson. Property and violent crime rates were sourced from the FBI’s 2024 national crime report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Plano had 1.5 violent crimes and 14.7 property crimes per 1,000 people, according to SmartAsset’s report, and 6.9 auto fatalities per 100,000 people. The city’s disaster risk, the report states, is relatively high\u00a0\u2014 risks in the region include thunderstorms, tornadoes, flooding and extreme heat.<\/p>\n

Related: This North Texas city’s parks rank among best in U.S., new report says<\/a><\/p>\n

Each metric was weighted and combined into a composite score used to rank the cities, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Plano council members voted to approve a contract for a $1.4 million drone-first emergency response program<\/a> to add new technology to the city’s public safety departments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are the safest city in Texas, and we want to stay that way,” said council member Rick Horne at the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Email tips on all things Collin County to lilly.kersh@dallasnews.com.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Morning Roundup, a free newsletter delivering the latest North Texas news each morning.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plano earned the No. 2 spot in a national ranking of the safest big cities\u00a0\u2014 and the top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[113101,7209,160,162,161,7541,38187],"class_list":["post-392673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-disaster-risk","tag-lone-star-state","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-property-crime","tag-smartasset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}