TYLER, Texas — East Texas is known for its beautiful scenery, historic locations and friendly people. Now two cities, will also be known as two of the top 20 safest cities in the lone star state. The City of Tyler is number 17 on the 2021 ‘Safest Cities in Texas’ list and Longview came in at 18. Safety.com reviewed Texas cities and towns using data from 2019 for its ranked list using public safety scores as well as financial safety metrics.
Amanda Fritter, a Whitehouse resident, said with small towns surrounding the two of the larger East Texas cities, making the cut for safest cities in Texas shows a lot for the communities surrounding them as well too.
“My family chose to move here because of the safeness and niceness of this area,” she said. “I truly believe that Tyler deserves that honor."
According to the Safety.com, each city was evaluated on crime rate using several public safety factors including the number of violent, property and hate crimes in each area to help determine the safest areas to live. A city’s financial safety using socioeconomic factors was measured on things like unemployment rate, poverty rate, household income, average rent, and health insurance.
While Tyler is 17 in the state, it’s actually 6 for financial safety and 22 for public safety. Longview while behind Tyler on the list beat the rose city and was scored 3 in the state for financial safety and 30 for public safety.
The Rose City’s unemployment rate has dropped in the last month from nearly 7 percent to 5.6. Longview has also gone down from nearly 8 to about 7 percent.
In 2018, the city of Tyler held a community survey which about 400 people responded to, 84% of residents surveyed who had an opinion
indicated that the city of Tyler is either an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ place to live.
Community members also reported their top reasons to live in Tyler were the low crime rate and the quality of health care services.
