Most Arizona suburbanites apparently live in a lawless Wild West in terms of crime, traffic accidents and alcohol abuse, according to a new study.
Only two Arizona suburbs ranked among the 100 safest nationally for having low rates of violent crimes, property crimes and traffic accidents, along with moderate alcohol use and fewer drug overdoses, reported SmartAsset, a financial website. Only three of 10 Arizona suburbs placed among the top half of the 360 communities SmartAsset analyzed nationally.
Lehi, Utah, near Salt Lake City, was deemed the safest suburb nationally, helped by an especially low score for heavy alcohol use, which is linked to various crimes and dangerous driving. Lehi was followed, with good overall safety scores, by Bethesda, Maryland; Great Falls, Virginia; Rockville, Maryland; and Dacula, Georgia.
In its study, SmartAsset ranked 360 U.S. suburbs located within 45-minute drives of a major city, based on the rates of violent crime, property crime, drug overdoses, traffic deaths and excessive drinking.
The study stretched the “suburb” definitions in some cases. For example, Rio Rico, near the border with Mexico and roughly 55 miles south of Tucson, was ranked as the safest Arizona suburb and 42nd overall. Gold Canyon, east of Mesa, was next best in 82nd place. Vail (No. 139) was the third-safest Arizona suburb, also near Tucson.
The other nine Arizona suburbs that were analyzed ranked below average for safety. The list here includes Green Valley (No. 182), Surprise (No. 204), Maricopa (No. 206), Oro Valley (No. 224), Peoria (No. 238), Marana (No. 248), Sahuarita (No. 253), Apache Junction (No. 276) and Tempe (No. 327).
Five other populous Arizona communities that are sometimes viewed as suburbs — Mesa, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Glendale and Chandler — now rank as top-100 cities nationally, along with Phoenix and Tucson.
Of the 10 Arizona suburbs analyzed, seven had better violent-crime scores than top-ranked Lehi, Utah. In addition, five did as well or better in terms of having modest property crimes.
What hurt the Arizona suburbs were relatively high traffic fatalities. Arizona, as a state, had the seventh-highest number of traffic deaths nationally in 2023, according to a separate study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Suburbs of some traffic-choked cities, including New York City and Boston, fared better than Arizona locations in this measure. “Stop-and-go traffic does have some benefits,” quipped Smart Asset’s Jaclyn DeJohn, who wrote the study.
The alcohol measure was tied to the percentage of residents who reported at least occasional heavy or binge drinking, and this measure also hurt Arizona.
Only 9.4% of adults reported excessive drinking in Lehi, for example. Yet 19% to 20% of the residents in the Arizona suburbs that were analyzed reported occasional heavy alcohol use, with some of those results coming from county surveys rather than those tied to specific suburbs.
Similarly, drug-overdose deaths were highest for the five Tucson suburbs in Pima County that were analyzed: Vail, Green Valley, Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita.
Reach the writer at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona suburbs are relatively unsafe, one study says. Here’s why