Four Of The Safest American Cities Are In North Carolina
With all the craziness and confusion going on in the world right now, it’s important to feel like you live in a safe and secure environment. Thankfully for several cities in North Carolina, that seems to be the case. WalletHub has released a new study ranking the safest cities in the United States, with four among the top 50 right here in North Carolina.
But which ones made the cut? According to the study, the four safest cities in North Carolina include Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Durham, and Charlotte.
The capital city ranks the highest at #18, with Winston-Salem close behind as the 26th safest city. Durham lands at a respectable #42, with Charlotte just 3 away ranking #45.
Fayetteville came in the middle of the pack, at 107 out of 182 ranked.
The study seems extensive, spanning across 182 cities with researchers examining several key categories. These categories include:
- Home and Community Safety
- Natural Disaster Risk
- Financial Safety
And among those factors were many different metrics that added up to a city’s final score in that category. For instance, in the Home and Community Safety category, the researchers assessed each city’s history of things like terrorist attacks, mass shootings, assaults and thefts per capita, and the like.
The Natural Disaster Risk category looked at how many naturally occurring disasters occurred in each city, such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires.
Finally in the Financial Safety block, every city was scored by its unemployment rate, number of uninsured residents, and median credit score (I may have singlehandedly dragged Fayetteville down with that last one. My bad, guys).
So if you live in Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Durham or Charlotte, you can rest assured that you’re in one of the safest and most secure cities in North Carolina. And for the rest of us, we’ll just have to make do where we can. Personally, I never go anywhere without my helmet, floaties and nunchucks. You can’t be too careful!
How to Tell If You're in the 'Xennial Generation'
You remember the Challenger tragedy..but barely
Space Shuttle Challenger explosion and tragedy took place in January 1986. If you’re a Xennial, you might have very faint memories of this happening, but you were very young. Xennials would be somewhere between the ages of 3 and 9 when this happened, whereas, Millennials would be 2 or younger or not born yet. Consequently, Gen X would be older than 9 so have much more distinct memories of the event.
UNSPECIFIED LOCATION – NOVEMBER 11: (FILE PHOTO) Space Shuttle Challenger crew members gather for an official portrait November 11, 1985 in an unspecified location. (Back, L-R) Mission Specialist Ellison S. Onizuka, Teacher-in-Space participant Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Payload Specialist Greg Jarvis and mission specialist Judy Resnick. (Front, L-R) Pilot Mike Smith, commander Dick Scobee and mission specialist Ron McNair. The Challenger and its seven member crew were lost seventy three seconds after launch when a booster rocket failed. (Photo by NASA/Getty Images)
You remember the fall of the Berlin Wall..but barely
If you were a child during the fall of the Berlin Wall, then you might be a Xennial. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Xennials would be somewhere between the ages of 6 and 12. So, you were perhaps too young to understand or really comprehend what was going on, but you knew it was going on.
BERLIN, GERMANY – NOVEMBER 09: A young woman peers through concrete slats among flowers left by other visitors at the Berlin Wall memorial at Bernauer Strasse on the 26th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. On November 9, 1989, East German border guards opened barriers at the Berlin Wall and allowed thousands of East Germans to cross into West Berlin, symbolically heralding the end of the division of Europe and the conclusion of the Cold War. Today politicians across Europe, even in Germany, are debating erecting border barriers of their own in order to stem the influx of migrants. According to the latest estimates Germany could receive up to 1.5 million migrants seeking asylum by the end of the year. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
You remember a time with no cell phone..but you've had one most of your life
The first cell phones came out Xennials were in their 20s or even late teens. So, Xennials remember a time with rotary phones and phone booths. But, most of their lives, they’ve had cell phones.
Getty Images / Ivan-balvan
You aren't an optimist or a pessimist
In general, Gen X is regarded as being a fairly pessimistic generation, while Millennials are optimistic. But, Xennials have both traits. At the very least, they have both their pessimistic and optimistic moments, but don’t sway one way or another.
Getty Images / kitzcorner
You weren't born into an era with computers or Facebook, but you had them early on
Xennials got computers as young as in their elementary and middle school years. But, these computers were very primitive, and this was long before Facebook or, ha, MySpace. So, Xennials tend to be pretty tech-savvy, having grown up with tech, but they come from a different perspective, since their first experiences with technology were nothing like the tech of today.
Getty Images / solarseven
