DENVER (KDVR) — Despite widespread public safety concerns, a few Denver metro suburbs are ranked some of the nation’s safest – if you can afford to live there.
Financial adviser site SmartAsset analyzed federal and county-level data of 370 suburbs within a 15- to 45-minute drive of the nation’s 100 largest cities. These included violent crime rates, property crime rates, vehicular mortality rates, drug poisoning mortality rates and share of the population engaged in excessive drinking.
Castle Rock is the tenth-safest suburb in the nation, despite its property crime levels.
Castle Rock has some of the best safety stats in the nation. It has the 29th lowest violent crime rate, the 17th lowest vehicular mortality rate and the 23rd lowest drug overdose rate. However, it has the 173rd lowest property crime rate – slightly better than the national average but not by much.
At the tenth safest, Castle Rock is considerably safer than any other Denver metro suburb in the study. Evergreen is the next safest, ranking 81st overall.
However, it takes a relatively hefty chunk of change to call Castle Rock home.
Denver’s southern neighbor does rank among the 35 most affordable safe suburbs on SmartAsset’s list, with 20.69% of income going to housing costs. However, that’s based on a median income for the area of $121,388, which is the ninth-highest among the safest suburbs.
This is compared to Georgetown, Texas, a safe suburb where residents spend the same share of their income on housing but make $40,000 less in a year.