The Movoto Real Estate Blog has already brought you lists of the 10 safest places in each state, and now we’re looking at the other side of the coin: the most dangerous places. In this post, we’re going to take a virtual tour of Virginia’s 10 most dangerous places:
1. City of Richmond
2. City of Norfolk
3. City of Portsmouth
4. City of Roanoke
5. City of Petersburg
6. City of Fredericksburg
7. City of Hopewell
8. City of Bristol
9. City of Danville
10. City of Newport News
We’ll take a closer look at each of these 10 cities in the upcoming paragraphs, but first, here’s how we came up with this list in the first place.
Just like our other Big Deal Lists, we began this one with a visit to the 2010 U.S. Census where we found all of the most populous places in Virginia of over 10,000 people. We then used the 2012 FBI Uniform Crime Report to look at each according to the following criteria:
“Richmond, Virginia”byTony Alteris licensed underCC BY 2.0
The capital city may be exciting, but according to these numbers, it can also be pretty dangerous. For instance, Richmond had the highest number of murders per person in 2012 out of anywhere else in the state. Not only that, but its number of violent crimes in general (including murders, rapes, assaults, and robberies) was the highest per person as well. The slightly brighter side was that Richmond’s number of property crimes per person was slightly lower than others in our top 10 (it ranked seventh in this category). While this means that the total number of crimes per person here was lower than it could have been, a higher percentage of those crimes were violent, and even more alarming, a higher percentage were murders, than anywhere else.
“Norfolk, VA”byKevin Colesis licensed underCC BY 2.0
Norfolk may not have quite the high number of violent crimes or murders that our most dangerous city, Richmond, did (nowhere else did), yet overall, residents here were more likely to be the victim of a crime—just a 1 in 19 chance. This is because of Norfolk’s higher number of property crimes per person—the fourth most in the state. Along with the third most murders and the third most violent crimes person, all this combined for a high number of total crimes and a higher likelihood of being involved in one of those crimes. Of course, residents in our next city were even more likely to fall victim.
“Portsmouth, Va.”bySeth Sawyersis licensed underCC BY 2.0
Portsmouth may be directly opposite from Norfolk, but where crime was concerned, these two were pretty close. The only difference is, where Norfolk ranked higher for its number of violent crimes, Portsmouth was more dangerous in its number of property crimes, ranking second in this category. All in all, with such a high number of property crimes, Portsmouth residents were some of the most likely in the state to be the victim of a crime—a 1 in 18 chance.
If you’re thinking about trading in Portsmouth for Roanoke, since it’s a bit further down the list, well, just be aware that your chance of being the victim of a crime is just as high—1 in 18. Of course the reasons behind this are a bit different. In Roanoke, the number of violent crimes per person was the second highest in the state, however, the number of murders was a bit less (still, the seventh highest in the state, not really much to brag about.) Roanoke also had a very high number of property crimes per person—the third highest in the state.
Here’s the good news about Petersburg: compared to some of the other places we looked at, it had a relatively low number of property crimes, and therefore overall crimes per person. Here’s the bad news: it had the fourth highest number of violent crimes and the second highest number of murders per person. The majority of its violent crimes were assaults, but still, for every 100,000 residents, there were 15 murders in 2012.
Fredericksburg ranked No. 8 in the category of violent crimes, and was the ninth highest for its number of murders per person. It was also the ninth highest for its number of property crimes and overall crimes, giving residents a 1 in 23 chance of being the victim of a crime in 2012.
In 2012, Hopewell had the seventh highest number of murders per person out of anywhere in Virginia. It also had a pretty high number of both property and violent crimes as a whole, ranking 10th in each category. Of those property crimes, a vast majority were thefts, and of the violent crimes, most were assaults.
Bristol had the fourth highest number of murders per person in the state during 2012, and it was also one of the most dangerous places in the state. To put this into perspective for you, for every person in Bristol there were .00011 murders. As small as this sounds, considering the fact that in 16 of the 37 places we looked at there were no murders, it is quite a lot.
In 2012, Danville had the fifth most property crimes per person, which caused the total number of crimes per person to rise as well. Most of these property crimes were thefts, but still, for every 100,000 people there were 974 burglaries. Another way to think of this is, for every one person, there were .00974 burglaries. Danville also had the 11th highest number of murders and the 14th highest number of violent crimes per person in the state.
Newport News had the fourth highest number of murders per person in the state. It also ranked ninth in the category of violent crime overall. Of course most of these crimes were assaults, but 149 per every 100,000 people were robberies and 28 were rapes.
If you’re looking for a new home in Virginia, we hope this list has helped. After all, even if you find the perfect place for the perfect price in the seemingly right location, if the city is dangerous, you may want to move somewhere else. And we can help you there too. You know, Poquoson is just lovely (and safe!) this time of year.
For Media Inquiries, Contact:
Randy Nelson
rnelson@movoto.com
