Study: Fort Lauderdale Is Least Safe City In America
MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- A new study has ranked Fort Lauderdale as the least safe city in America.
WalletHub compared 182 cities across three key dimensions: 1) Home & Community Safety, 2) Natural-Disaster Risk, and 3) Financial Safety.
Each of the dimensions was evaluated using 42 metrics, which were each graded on a 100-point scale, to determine an overall score.
Among the metrics was average COVID-19 cases in the last seven days per 100,000 residents, assaults per capita, traffic fatalities per capita, hurricane storm-surge risk level, tornado risk level, flood risk level and share of uninsured drivers.
There were other metrics as well including number of mass shootings, murders per capita, rapes per capita, thefts per capita, sex offenders per capita, law-enforcement employees per capita and firefighters per capita.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis does not agree with the survey.
"Much of the data being used in the Wallethub survey has little to do with safety. A closer look at the metrics reveals that cities are being judged on extraneous criteria including road conditions, retirement plan participation, credit scores, debt-to-income ratios, and poverty rates," said Mayor Trantalis in an emailed statement to CBS4. "Fort Lauderdale's crime rates are much lower than many of the cities listed in the survey, and we are proud of the work our Police Department is doing keeping our city safe for residents and visitors."
For financial safety, Miami came in last place.
How did other Florida cities fare?
The safest city in Florida was Cape Coral, which ranked No. 44.
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Tampa was 82, Tallahassee was 85. Pembroke Pines was 93, Jacksonville ranked No. 120, Port St. Lucie was 132, Hialeah was 136, Miami ranked No. 153, Orlando was 159, St. Petersburg was 170 and Fort Lauderdale was 182.
The safest city listed was Columbia, Maryland.
