Philadelphia was recently ranked among the worst cities in the United States for safety.
The city ranked No. 169 out of 182 on a list of the safest American cities from the personal finance website WalletHub.
WalletHub listed Columbia, Md. as the safest city and named St. Louis the least safe city in the country. Boston was ranked No. 99, New York was ranked No. 113, and Washington D.C. was ranked No. 167.
Three factors were used to determine the rankings — home and community safety, natural-disaster risk, and financial safety. Philadelphia was ranked No. 178 for home and community safety, No. 15 for natural-disaster risk, and No. 128 for financial safety.
To calculate a total weighted score, neighborhood safety was assigned 50 points, natural-disaster risk was assigned 30 points, and financial safety was assigned 20 points. Philadelphia scored 60.73 out of 100 points overall.
The natural disasters category assessed cities' risk of encountering large disasters such as tornadoes and earthquakes, as well as more common ones such as floods and hail.
Home and community safety compared contributors such as the prevalence of terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and motor-vehicle deaths with the number of emergency responders such as police officers and EMTs available to address these issues.
Financial security was evaluated by determinants such as poverty and unemployment statistics.
Philadelphia has also received poor rankings in other recent reports. It was ranked as the most stressed city in Pennsylvania in March 2019, and the third-worst city for income inequality in the country in October 2018. Philadelphia has also been ranked as the least healthy county in Pennsylvania and one of the worst cities for driving.
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