According to a study published earlier in June, two Tennessee towns are among America’s top 25 safest suburbs.
According to SmartAsset, Brentwood and Franklin are two of the safest suburbs in the country.
Brentwood ranks 16th, while Franklin ranks 21st.
Brentwood is also the fourth most affordable and safe suburb in America.
“Roughly 10 miles south of Nashville, Brentwood ranks 16th for safety and fourth for affordability. The median household income in this city of over 44,000 people is $165,948,” the study says. “As a result, typical households in Brentwood spend just 16.09% of their income on housing.”
To determine what a “suburb” is for the purpose of the study, Smart Asset says it compared data for 370 towns within 15 to 45 minutes of the 100 largest U.S. cities by car, all of which have at least 5,000 residents.
SmartAsset used median annual housing costs provided by the Census Bureau’s 1-year American Community Survey from 2021 and median household income from the same survey to measure affordability.
SmartAsset says it then used crime metrics to rank safety.
Of those crime metrics, the violent crime rate, property crime rate, vehicular mortality rate, drug poisoning mortality rate and the percentage of the population engaging in “excessive drinking” were taken into consideration.
“The number of violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Data comes from the FBI’s 2021 Uniform Crime Reporting Database; missing crime data was supplemented by NeighborhoodScout.com,” according to SmartAsset. “The number of property crimes per 100,000 residents. Data comes from the FBI’s 2021 Uniform Crime Reporting Database; missing crime data was supplemented by NeighborhoodScout.com.”
County health rankings were used to measure deaths per 100,000 in motor vehicle accidents and drug overdose deaths per 100,000 residents.
As for the “excessive drinking” statistic, the study used the following definition:
The percentage of adults who consumed more than four drinks of alcohol for women or five drinks of alcohol for men on a single occasion over a 30-day period, or who engage in heavy drinking, which is defined as drinking more than one drink per day for women or two drinks a day for men on average. Data is from the 2022 County Health Rankings.
“The vehicular mortality rate, drug poisoning mortality rate and percentage of the population engaging in excessive drinking are all measured at the county level,” according to the study. “Both violent and property crime rates are at the city level.”
– – –
Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter.
Photo “Franklin, Tennessee” by Ichabod. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Quite a story for a couple of communities positioned just outside of Nashville proper. Where in the city of Nashville in the rating you just reported on? If you are one of those that see the potential for economic and financial calamity hitting us sometime soon then how long do you think it would take for all the components which currently make up Nashville to overrun the communities of Brentwood and Franklin seeking what those communities have to offer the greater public shall we say? My guess would be less than a week or two.