Moving to safer cities: 2025’s top move-to cities where crime is declining

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Moving to safer cities: 2025’s top move-to cities where crime is declining

In a recent moveBuddha survey, 79% of Americans said they’d consider moving in 2025 if it meant heading to a safer neighborhood.

So, moveBuddha dug into the data to find out which of America’s favorite cities to move to in 2025 are getting safer.

• 73% of 2025’s most searched relocation cities are safer due to falling crime rates, both top move-to destination and exit cities.
• Movers are flocking to Providence, Rhode Island, Lansing, Michigan, and Boise, Idaho, and crime is dropping at the highest rates.
• Raleigh, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas, suburbs struggle with increases in local crime as their populations grow.

While safety is often front of mind, only 4.7%of movers told U.S. Census researchers that wanting to live in a better neighborhood or one with less crime was the primary reason they made a move. Other surveys, like one conducted by Redfin in 2021, show that as many as 50% of homeowner relocations have been driven by a desire for improved safety.

The good news is that, according to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), crime is falling. In fact, of the 138 cities with the most searches for 2025 moves that moveBuddha has relocation data for, 101 have seen a drop in property crime since 2020, while 100 saw lower violent crime rates. In spite of heartening statistics, annual data from Gallup polls regularly find that the majority of Americans feel crime in their area is getting worse year by year.

And that perception is impacting whether or not they want to move. It’s also influencing where they want to go.

To find out if the places where crime is falling fastest aligns with where Americans are flocking to the most in 2025, moveBuddha analyzed 2025’s top relocation cities using its search data, focusing on cities with an in-to-out move ratio of 1.25 or higher. Crime trends from the NIBRS tracking year-over-year and five-year changes in violent and property crime were also included. Each city received a Crime Decline Score to rank overall safety improvements.

Which cities are succeeding in keeping crime way down, even while working against a rising tide of new residents?

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Key Takeaways

• Providence, Rhode Island, is the city with the highest move interest where crime fell fastest. Violent crime since 2020 dropped 65%, across the same period property crime dropped 41%. Runners-up are Lansing, Michigan, Boise, Idaho, Asheville, North Carolina, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
• Raleigh, North Carolina, is the most popular destination with the worst crime reduction record. Violent crime is up 6.3% in Raleigh since 2020, while property crime has risen 31%.
• Two Austin suburbs are also struggling with years of high popularity and rising violent crime. Georgetown and Pflugerville, Texas, both have seen violent crime increase substantially since 2020, 34% and 28%, respectively.
• El Paso and Lubbock, Texas, have reduced crime the most since 2020. It’s not where people are moving, though.

Where Movers Are Flocking and Crime is Falling Fastest

In a world where perceptions of safety play a significant role in relocation decisions, these cities should be refuges from crime.

And in this case, they deliver: Despite the influx of newcomers, the number of reported crimes is down most in these areas. In other words, these cities are living up to the hype.

Here are 2025’s top move-to cities, which had significantly higher volumes of searches for moves in versus out, an in-to-out move ratio of 1.25 or higher (a total of 53 cities), and where both violent and property crime rates are dropping both year over year and across the last five years.

These are the top 10 cities:

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1. Providence, Rhode Island

With the nation’s top crime improvement score, Providence lowered instances of violent crime by nearly 65% from 2020 to 2024 and slashed property crime by 41.4% over the same period. At the same time, Providence saw 1.67 new in-move searches for every move-out over the same period, proving that a growing city doesn’t mean increasing crime.

2. Lansing, Michigan

In Lansing, 1.31 searches are for moves near Michigan State University for every inquiry outbound. Despite its popularity, violent crime is down 45.6% since 2020, while property crime has fallen 37.9%. One 2021 study by Commercial Cafe contends that many of the city’s newcomers are coming from Detroit (where crime is down), supporting the idea that movers are seeking out areas with improving crime rates.

3. Boise, Idaho

With 1.81 newcomers for every prospective outbound move, Boise’s population growth has been on the rise. The area has exploded since 2020, with Ada and Canyon counties adding close to 100,000 new residents by mid-2024. But Boise’s not experiencing growing pains when it comes to criminal activity: Violent crime has fallen 19.1% since 2020, and property crime has tumbled 43.3%.

Where Movers are Flocking But Crime Poses a Challenge

Which popular move-to cities have the worst crime scores?

With an average in-to-out move ratio of 1.55—lower than the top 10’s 1.73—these 10 cities have struggled to reduce crime as effectively over the past four years. While slightly less popular than their safer counterparts, they still attract many new residents.

Here are the cities where rising populations haven’t yet translated to improved safety:

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Raleigh, North Carolina: Property crime has risen 31% since 2020, and violent crime 6.3%

Popular Raleigh, North Carolina, sees more than twice as many inquiries for in-moves as out-moves, and perhaps the rising population is part of why crime is on the rise. Whatever the reason, Raleigh’s been unable to lower either violent or property crime. Both have risen from 2020 to 2024: Violent crime incidents are up 6.3%, while property crime has jumped 31%. There’s a bright side, though — violent crime incidents fell 7.7% year over year from 2023 to 2024.

Chicago: Property crime has risen 34.7% since 2020, and violent crime 3.8%

As the nation’s third-largest metro area based on population, Chicago might be in a position to absorb newcomers without seeing a rise in crime rates. But it hasn’t succeeded. Though violent crime is down over the past year, incidents are up 3.8% overall from 2020 to 2024, with property crime incidents up a whopping 34.7%.

Georgetown, Texas: Violent crime has risen 34.4% since 2020, and 18.8% in the past year

The country’s fastest-growing suburb outside Austin is struggling to keep up with violent crime. Up 18.8% year over year and 24.4% since 2020, violent crimes like assault and murder are more common. It’s not all bad news in Georgetown — property crime rates have fallen 12.1% since 2020.

Why Aren’t Movers Flocking to These Cities Where Crime Is Rapidly Dropping?

While American movers say they’re making their moving decisions based on crime and safety, the most popular locations aren’t exactly aligned with the best crime-decline scores.

Of the top 10 most popular destinations, two are safety champs (Chatanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee), while two others have bottom-tier crime decline scores (Raleigh, North Carolina, and Grand Rapids, Michigan).

The rest? They fall somewhere in between.

Overall, safety scores don’t catapult a location to the top of the desirability chart. For example, in the No. 1 most popular move destination (Meridian, Idaho), where there are 2.67 move inquiries for every out-move request, property crimes increased 16.5% year over year. And in No. 6 most popular Raleigh, North Carolina, both violent and property crime incidents have been rising since 2020.

Regardless of move-to popularity, the cities with crime-stopper cities were:

1. El Paso, Texas
2. Lubbock, Texas
3. Worcester, Massachusetts
4. Providence, Rhode Island
5. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
6. Lansing, Michigan
7. Bakersfield, California
8. Hartford, Connecticut
9. Cedar Park, Texas
10. New Orleans, Louisiana

Just two of the top 10 (Providence, Rhode Island, and Lansing, Michigan) have an in-to-out move ratio higher than 1.25, and five of the top 10 have a ratio that’s less than one, with more out-move interest than in.

However, some of these less popular cities should be on your shortlist. If you’re considering a north Austin suburb, Cedar Park, Texas, with its 1.00 in-to-out move ratio may be worth a look. While it’s not on the radar yet, its 34% reduction in violent crime and 32% reduction in property crime last year stands out over nearby cities with more name recognition, like Georgetown or Pflugerville.

El Paso, Texas

Violent crime incidents are down in El Paso 67.1% since 2020 while property crime incidents fell 52.9%. That adds up to the highest “crime reduction” score in the study. Though the city on the Mexican border in West Texas sees 0.61 searches for moves in compared to every search outbound, the overall population is slowly creeping higher, which should result in slightly elevated crime incidents — not the impressive reduction the city is seeing.

Lubbock, Texas

Since 2020, violent crime has fallen 43.5%, while property crime incidents are down 56.7%, the highest reduction of any city. Home to Texas Tech University, Lubbock is growing in population, so its crime reduction success is noteworthy.

Worcester, Massachusetts

Worcester, Massachusetts, isn’t winning move interest. With 0.88 inquiries inbound for every out-move, the enclave an hour and a half from Boston is low on the popularity list. But the city is gaining population, making its crime-stopping prowess all the more impressive. Worcester has seen violent crime reports plunge 27.1% since 2020, while property crime is down 52%.

Why Movers May Overlook Cities Leading in Crime Reduction

Americans want less crime, and in roughly 72% of this year’s top move-to cities, they are already seeing it.

But for those looking to move for greater safety, understanding where crime reduction is strong can jumpstart smarter searches. Do outbound cities have higher crime, and do inbound cities have less? Interestingly, moving interest doesn’t always align with those cities doing best at reducing instances of crime.

In some ways, the current gulf between move interest and crime reduction winners is logical.

1. First, crime incidents take time to report and for successes to be reflected in the experiences of those living in real neighborhoods. And movers may be more likely to rely on anecdotal evidence on broader narratives about safety in cities, like relying on stories about cities that “have always been unsafe” or grapevine tales of neighborhood break-ins.
2. Second, movers may be looking within their own cities for neighborhoods with less crime, so citywide crime reduction isn’t relevant, but neighborhood-specific trends and perceptions are. They already have their eyes on the lowest-crime enclaves within both high and low-crime reduction cities and may not see much difference between the two.
3. Finally, safe cities with historically low crime may see less success in whittling crime to even tinier numbers, and may not appear on the charts of most improved cities. Movers to these cities aren’t heading to the cities that we’re highlighting as crime reduction winners, but that doesn’t mean safety isn’t on movers’ minds or that movers are wrong about crime.

They’re likely just focused on different information than the official crime rates and the rates at which local communities are lowering instances of crime. Long-term Gallup research shows that Americans typically believe crime is rising even when it’s down, but a 2021 Pew analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI data shows that conversely, fewer than half of crimes are reported — suggesting crime is a problem relayed through personal and social channels, failing to appear in official sources of information.

Americans may simply be relying less on those channels for their own perceptions of safety in certain cities.

Making Safer, Smarter Moves

Right now, as movers look to popular move destinations, they can take heart knowing that some cities with high interest are doing better than others at absorbing new residents while lowering their own reported crime instances yearly. If movers are seeking a destination that’s putting in the work to reduce reported crime (and likely crime as a whole), these are great contenders.

Ultimately, understanding both crime and moving trends can help relocators make a more informed choice so they can make sure their new home is not just a top destination, but a safer one, too.

Methodology

MoveBuddha explored crime rates among the top cities Americans are planning to move to in 2025, based on over 200,000 relocation searches, limiting the analysis to cities that had more than 50 moveBuddha search inquiries both in and out of the city, combining that move data with crime data from the Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI).

The RTCI uses crime data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which makes comparisons between cities unreliable due to differences in reporting systems, categorization practices, and local dynamics.

However, analyzing a single city’s data over time is more consistent, as its reporting methods and definitions are likely stable. This makes within-city trends more meaningful for evaluating safety improvements than intercity rankings. The crime reduction scores represent change over time within the same metropolitan area, which is likely to accurately assess whether more or fewer similar crime incidents are occurring in an area.

Year-over-year change in the number of criminal incidents alongside the broader change from 2020 to 2024 were measured, averaging the two and scaling results to create a crime score in each of two categories: violent crime and property crime. Averaging those two category scores yielded a final “crime decline” score between 1 and 10 for each city. Scores ranged from 9.9 (El Paso, Texas) to 2.48 (Maricopa, Arizona).

Here’s is the full list of cities analyzed, including the cities with low in-to-out move ratios:

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This story was produced by moveBuddha and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.