A new SmartAsset analysis, authored by Jaclyn DeJohn, ranks Los Angeles as the second safest major city in America – behind San Jose and ahead of Fort Worth, Omaha, and Virginia Beach. The study compares the 50 largest U.S. cities on five per-capita measures: violent crime, property crime, fatal car accidents, drug overdose deaths, and excessive drinking.
DeJohn frames the findings in a broader national debate over urban safety, noting that high-level political interventions (and criticisms of those interventions) have turned city crime into a proxy battle over public policy and perception. Any ranking that vaults L.A. to No. 2 is going to invite scrutiny, and it should, but it’s also worth understanding exactly what was measured and how L.A. stacks up on those metrics.
What SmartAsset Actually Measured For L.A.
On SmartAsset’s scorecard, Los Angeles posts: violent crime per adult of 0.0082 (31,303 incidents), property crime per adult of 0.0286 (109,285 incidents), traffic deaths of 9.5 per 100,000, drug overdose deaths of 23.0 per 100,000, and 19.43% of adults reporting excessive drinking. Those numbers are per-capita among adults, which is key – L.A. can have high absolute incident counts and still look relatively better once population size is accounted for. In other words, the city’s sheer scale cuts both ways: it can frighten with big raw numbers yet rank well if the rate per person is middling compared to other big metros.
San Jose At No. 1 – And The Contrast SmartAsset Emphasizes
DeJohn highlights why San Jose tops the list: consistently strong showings across all five measures – third fewest violent crimes (5,185), fifth fewest property crimes (25,715), low overdose death rate (17.4 per 100,000), and among the best for vehicular deaths (6.9 per 100,000) and excessive drinking (17.8%). The study also contrasts San Jose with San Francisco, which scores well on violent crime and road deaths but is dragged down by high property crime, overdose deaths, and excessive drinking. The implication: to rank at the top, you can’t just be good in one category – you have to be pretty solid across all.
KRON4’s Big-Picture Read – And a Puzzling Detail
Nick Jachim of KRON4 (via The Hill) distilled SmartAsset’s findings and published a clean top-25 table that places Los Angeles at No. 2, with three Texas cities – Fort Worth (3), Arlington (7), and El Paso (8) – also cracking the top 10. Jachim notes that L.A. “stacked up similarly” to San Jose across crime metrics and writes that L.A. “actually had a significantly lower vehicular mortality rate” than San Jose. That line doesn’t square with SmartAsset’s own figures – San Jose is listed at 6.9 road deaths per 100,000 vs. L.A.’s 9.5 – so it looks like KRON4’s summary may have that particular comparison reversed. The broader point stands: in the SmartAsset model, L.A. scores well enough across categories to land in the top tier.
Where The Pushback Is Coming From
Gun-rights commentator Braden Langley (Langley Outdoors Academy) argues the “No. 2 safest” claim is built on “manipulated stats,” pointing to gaps in FBI Uniform Crime Reporting as California moved to a new reporting system. He cites that only about half of California’s law-enforcement agencies submitted 2022 data to the FBI – and says some of the biggest agencies (including LAPD, LASD, SFPD, SJPD) were among those missing. In his telling, underreporting suppresses rate calculations and artificially lifts California cities in cross-city comparisons. He also references third-party sites like NeighborhoodScout and CrimeGrade that rate L.A. poorly – framing the SmartAsset outcome as an outlier rather than a trend.
Methodology Matters More Than A Tweet
Here’s the crux: rankings are only as good as their inputs. SmartAsset’s study is transparent about what it measures, but not every reader will clock the difference between per-capita rates among adults vs. total-population rates, or how overdose deaths and excessive drinking are weighted alongside conventional crime. If a city is average on crime but strong on public-health metrics, it can leapfrog places that have low violent crime but high overdose rates. My view: that’s defensible – public safety includes more than police reports – but it absolutely shapes outcomes and should be clearly understood before we crown a new No. 2.
Why L.A. Can Rank High Even If The Headlines Feel Grim
Think of Los Angeles as a “portfolio” city: decent (not best-in-class) violent and property crime rates per adult, middle-of-the-pack traffic fatalities, and better-than-many overdose and binge-drinking rates. Compare that to Chicago, which DeJohn notes suffers from a very high violent-crime rate and above-average property crime, or Washington, D.C., where overdose deaths are among the worst. L.A. benefits from balance – no glaring disaster category in this five-metric set – even though day-to-day news coverage can make it feel otherwise.
The California Data Caveat – How Big A Deal Is It?
Langley’s point about FBI reporting gaps is fair context. The FBI’s shift to NIBRS has produced uneven coverage across states, and California’s partial submissions in 2022 complicate apples-to-apples comparisons when a model pulls heavily from national sources. That said, composite studies often blend FBI data with local police releases, health department data, and CDC mortality figures. We don’t have SmartAsset’s full sourcing line-by-line here, but it’s possible they used city-published counts where FBI gaps existed. The data uncertainty is real and should temper triumphalism – but it doesn’t automatically invalidate SmartAsset’s ranking unless you can show L.A.’s missing records would materially flip the outcome.
Perception Versus Probability
Safety is both a feeling and a statistical probability. SmartAsset tries to quantify the latter; critics point out the former. If your car was broken into last month, a table saying “L.A. is No. 2” won’t soothe you. Conversely, if overdose deaths and excessive drinking feel like bigger threats to your family than burglary, SmartAsset’s lens might feel more relevant. The lesson: citywide rankings hide neighborhood-level variation. In L.A., risk changes dramatically block to block – and responsible readers should treat the ranking as macro context, not a guarantee about their micro reality.
A Quick Look Under The Hood At L.A.’s Numbers
For Angelenos trying to square the circle: a violent-crime rate of 0.0082 per adult roughly means about 8 incidents per 1,000 adults in a year. Property crime at 0.0286 is about 29 incidents per 1,000 adults. Those are not utopian figures, but they’re competitive among the 50 largest U.S. cities, especially when folded together with 23 overdose deaths per 100,000 and a 19.43% excessive-drinking rate that’s lower than some peers. If you compare to San Francisco’s much higher overdose rate and property crime, you see why L.A. rises in a combined index.
What KRON4 Got Right About The Broader Landscape
Jachim’s summary captures a notable pattern: Texas cities (Fort Worth, Arlington, El Paso) punctuate the top 10, and Sun Belt metros (Las Vegas, Charlotte, Raleigh) show competitively balanced profiles. That suggests this isn’t simply a “blue city” or “red city” story – it’s a cross-metric story. Cities that avoid catastrophic scores in any single category can climb, even if they’re not the absolute best on crime alone.
What Would Change My Mind
If California’s missing FBI submissions masked large volumes of serious offenses that weren’t otherwise captured by local sources, I would expect L.A.’s violent and property crime rates to rise materially – and that could knock it out of the top tier. Likewise, if SmartAsset heavily weights overdose deaths and excessive drinking relative to crime (we don’t have the exact weights in the excerpt), that could advantage L.A. over cities with safer streets but worse public-health stats. Transparency on data vintage, source mix, and weights would help settle the dust.
The Bottom Line For Readers
Jaclyn DeJohn’s SmartAsset study makes a clear, data-driven case: by its five chosen metrics, Los Angeles is the second safest big city in America right now. Nick Jachim’s KRON4 write-up puts that in national context, even if one traffic-fatality comparison appears flipped. Braden Langley’s critique is a useful reminder that data pipelines and definitions matter, especially during the FBI’s reporting transition. My view: treat the ranking as encouraging but provisional. L.A. performs better than its reputation on this composite – but the picture can shift with cleaner, more complete data.
How To Use This Information, Practically
If you live in L.A., this doesn’t mean you throw caution to the wind. It means you calibrate: prioritize neighborhood-specific crime patterns, drive defensively (traffic deaths remain a real risk), and be mindful about substance use harms in your community. If you’re weighing a move or an investment, use SmartAsset’s list as a starting point, then layer in local police compstat reports, public-health dashboards, and on-the-ground knowledge. Rankings are signposts, not destinies.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
