Gallup Poll: Boston, Dallas Rated as Safest Cities

According to the latest Gallup poll, Dallas and Boston are considered the safest American large cities to live in or visit, while Detroit and Chicago are considered the least safe. People were polled about their views of 16 large U.S. cities.

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults think Dallas (74%) and Boston (72%) are safe, and majorities ranging from 52% to 63% rate nine other cities as safe. Those include Seattle, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

Considered the least safe cities by respondents are Detroit (only 26% consider it safe), Chicago (27%), Philadelphia (47%), New York (41%), and Los Angeles (41%).

Political partisanship has an affect on perceptions of safety. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are substantially more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaning independents to perceive each city as safe. On average, the party gap today across the 16 cities is 29 percentage points, much greater than the two-point gap in the 2006 poll.

Majorities of Democrats consider all but Chicago and Detroit to be safe places to live in or visit. In contrast, majorities of Republicans view just five cities as safe: Las Vegas, Miami, Dallas, Boston, and Houston. Democrats are most likely to perceive Seattle and Boston as safe, while Boston and Dallas top the list among Republicans.

Young adults, urban residents, and college graduates rate cities safer than their counterparts, Gallup reported.

Americans’ perceptions of Miami as a safe city have gradually grown from 17% in 1990 to the latest 59%, which is its first majority-level rating. Washington, D.C., up 30 points since 1990, is also viewed as safe by a majority for the first time. Los Angeles’ current 41% safe rating is its highest to date and up 15 points since 1990.

Chicago’s current 27% safe rating is down 20 points from 2006.

Views of safety in San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Seattle have all dropped precipitously since 2006 — from 15 to 18 points. These three cities, along with Chicago, have seen increases in crime in recent years. In 2006, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Seattle ranked among the highest in terms of perceived safety.

High-profile events, such as the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the creation of the autonomous zone in Seattle, and gun violence in Chicago are most likely to have affected views of crime in those cities, Gallup noted.

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted July 3-27 with a random sample of 1,015 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on these samples of national adults, the margin of sampling error is plus/minus 5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.