Tue. Nov 26th, 2024

Santa Ana has been selected as the fourth safest city in the United States of America, by Forbes.

To find America’s 10 safest cities, Forbes looked at metropolises with populations above 250,000. They then ranked them by violent crime rates—the number of violent crimes (murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault) per 100,000 residents in 2010, as reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

They also ranked each city on the traffic-fatality rate per 100,000 residents based on 2009 data, the most recent available, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They then averaged the ranking for each city to arrive at final scores. In the event of ties, the city with the lower crime rate got the higher ranking.

Here is the Forbes – America’s five safest cities:

#5 Lincoln, NE

Car fatality rank: 1

Violent crime rank: 16

#4 Santa Ana, CA

Car fatality rank: 4

Violent crime rank: 11

#3 Honolulu, HI

Car fatality rank: 7 Violent crime rank: 4

#2 Henderson, NV

Car fatality rank: 5

Violent crime rank: 3

#1 Plano, TX

Car fatality rank: 6

Violent crime rank: 1

Kudos to Santa Ana’s Chief of Police, Paul Walters, who is also our acting City Manager, and thanks to our Santa Ana Police Department, and our City Council for keeping us safe here in Santa Ana.

author avatar
Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

By Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

35 thoughts on “Santa Ana named 4th safest U.S. city, by Forbes”
  1. I was standing at 17th and Ross the other night, having missed the bus after the Planned Parenthood thing, and I called up a cabbie friend. It was close to 11. When my friend heard where I was, he said, “Get over back down to Norm’s quickly – it’s dangerous there!” I looked around. It didn’t look or feel dangerous to me.

  2. “Santa Ana named 4th safest U.S. city, by Forbes”….. Hmmmm

    It is relative Admin.

    There is no award metal after the bronze.

    No one counts the losers after that.

  3. Been in SA for a while now…seems safe on the violent crime route like they say, but lower level crimes such as car break ins, garage break ins, people walking in unlocked doors and taking property, etc…seems to have increased IMO.

  4. Stanley- The fallacy in your “D” argument is that it is not a grade but instead a ranking (4th out of 250). The classroom analogy would be whether he would be happy if his child had the 4th highest GPA/score out of a class of 250…pretty good IMO. If the 4th highest score was a “D” that would be a bell curve that no one would want…

    Even more impressive in my mind may even be their ranking compared to the median income…the cities ahead of SA all have substantially higher income levels. Sure there is measure of that somewhere

  5. I have a deep love for this city, and it hurts when people say mean things (especially in the OC Register comments) that are simply born of ignorance or completely untrue. Of course Santa Ana has problems – fiscal and crime-wise, but so does every large metropolitan city. In my own experience, Santa Ana is filled with caring family-oriented people that want to see this city succeed and do well, because they in turn, can see their property values rise, and better businesses come to their neighborhood. I love Santa Ana for the Mexican influence, and the new businesses that are drawn here because they know there is a new market. I love that we can embrace all cultures, and all get along. It’s the people that want to EXCLUDE that rile me. There are still dicey parts of Santa Ana that are rife with gang activity, but they are not in the areas where people come to visit. I love Santa Ana.

  6. “The fallacy in your “D” argument is that it is not a grade but instead a ranking (4th out of 250). The classroom analogy would be whether he would be happy if his child had the 4th highest GPA/score out of a class of 250…pretty good IMO. If the 4th highest score was a “D” that would be a bell curve that no one would want…”….. Hmmmmm

    This is a classical case of how the statistic can be abused by anyone who wants get their results out.

    Example:
    If in the classroom of 35 moron mongoloids there is first student graded “A”; second student graded “B”; third student graded “C”; and forth student graded “D”; than the “D” student is ranking (4th best out of 35) in classroom.

    You can do that same as an average per city having group of students instead of one student so if your child falls into the group “D” he/she belongs to 4th best students in the city.

    Bottom line is that Santa Ana will be the safest city when pajaritos will sing about it on every tree.

    In other words when people will move from Laguna Hills to Santa Ana for safety reasons in which case property value will rise in price and massive gentrification will take place.

    As long as property value remains low it indicates that the Santa Ana is high crime city regardless of any Forbes propaganda.

  7. SF- I guess if you make the assumption that all of the kids in the class are “moron mongoloids” then you are right…hopefully my kids don’t go to the same school as the kids in your example. I don’t really see how that relates to the Forbes sample which the article pretty clearly states their sample which is all city with a population above 250K and does not indicate only those cities with low income, low ppty values, etc… I disagree with your example, but not with your conclusion.

    I cannot imagine that SA is the 4th safest city above 250K people in most of our neighbors perception. The problem with the Forbes ranking IMO is that it only focuses on “violent crimes” which only includes murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault and also traffic fatalities. I believe that robbery would only include thefts where the victim is present (i.e. not a vacant house break in or a car theft), but that is where I am not positive. There is no consideration by Forbes for car break ins, petty theft, panhandling aggravation, breaking and entering, etc… I don’t feel that I am gong to get shot, raped, or robbed at gunpoint, but there definitely are times that I feel like my house or car will get broken into.

  8. There is only one indicator which determines whether or not the city is safe; and once again it is a supply and demand which equals price of the property.

    The price of property is directly proportional to the crime of any kind.

    The people tend to gravitate to safe place to live which creates demand and with a demand the supply goes down and the price go up in which case more affluent people will occupy such places.

    As to statistics, it is always an issue, is the glass half empty or half full, and what is the substance in the glass.

    So you can play with it anyway you want but it will never bring property value up as the only indicator of the safety.

    You can see this phenomenon when relatively valuable property are in the hands of the gangs in which case high security gated communities are establish which increases price in surrounding areas forcing riffraff out via gentrification.

    Santa Ana is not bad place but it will never be a city where you want to go for a vacation with your family as long as Magnificent Seven Latinos are running the show.

  9. F**k all you haters I lived in Santa Ana for 13 years. It was the best years of my life every where you go it’s chill and safe stop hating and visit the 4th safety city in USA

  10. “stop hating and visit the 4th safety city in USA”…… Hmmmmm

    How about to visit 1st two safest cities in the world Sodom and Gomorrah at least they have the Red Light District so the Cities Council Members do not have to bang coworkers on the conference table?

    Yes I like that!

  11. Note to all: yes, I have begun to pay Fiala to publicize my writing, as evident above, and I don’t care who knows it. I pay him in doggie biscuits. He stands up on his hind legs and everything?

    P.S. For any of Stanley’s readers who do not yet know that I am Jewish: I am Jewish. Stanley takes publicizing this very seriously, even when I threaten to withhold biscuits.

  12. “P.S. For any of Stanley’s readers who do not yet know that I am Jewish: I am Jewish”……. Hmmmmm

    That was the first sentence published by Diamond here: “I am Jewish!”

    Why?

    So he can cal everyone who pose him — anti-Semitic.

    Otherwise who cares?

    To me he is just another lefty-moron-mongoloid-bolshevik-hater.

  13. The first thing I encountered when doing a pertinent search of OJB archives:

    Stanley: “It will take minimum 20 years to recover from the Obama’s black magic.”

    Me: “Stop saying “Obama’s black magic.”

    Stanley: Stop limiting my constitutionally speech. (you Zionist)

    There’s plenty more where that came from. I’m not the one who raises it.

    By the way, I recall seeing no sign that Art, cook, junior, KLND, or others who often oppose me are anti-Semitic. I literally haven’t run into anyone “old school” like you since high school.

  14. Although, I am not German because I am Czech, Diamond is harboring hate against me by labeling me a German:

    Diamond’s anti-Gentile hate speech: “My sense is that you might as well be yammering about a scabies-infested German grammar school classmate of yours from half a century ago to whom people referred sotto voce as “Unclean Hans.”

    Now, let me substitute the word German with the word Jewish (both perfectly normal legal words but one of them is TABOO)so you can see how Diamond express his hate.

    “My sense is that you might as well be yammering about a scabies-infested Jewish grammar school classmate of yours from half a century ago to whom people referred sotto voce as “Unclean Hans.”

    Now you can see that same text appear normal in first example and anti-Semitic in the second example, both identical and written by Diamond except for one word.

    It is your duty as the citizens of the United States to protect your Constitution.

    It is your duty to educate yourselves by way of your own research.

    It is your duty not to be brainwashed and hypnotize by believing that using word Jew is in any way, form or shape anti-Semitic hate.

    It is perfectly normal to refer to Diamond as Jew same as it is normal to refer to me as Czech or Bohemian.

    Every time you want to see Diamond’s hate speech substitute word Jew/ Jewish for word whom he is addressing in his hate speech, read it again, and you will see nothing but the hate because you have been hypnotized to associate everything in the speech containing word “Jew” with antisemitism.

    Santa Ana council woman Claudia Alvarez fell into the same trap. She was unjustly persecuted by most of you because you are hypnotized by Jewish propaganda.

    You can’t even say Christmas so you wont offend Jews! Shame!

    In his article Greg Diamon selected only Latinos as criminals.

    In contrast, if I would write article like his and post pictures of Criminal Jews like Bernard Medoff I will be labeled anti-Semitic.

    I hope that some of you can clearly see how your free and protected speech was stolen by Jews like Diamond. Allegedly Diamond is lawyer who is sworn to protect the constitution. Shame on him, same on Diamond.

    Obviously Esq. Diamond will continue to print Fiala is anti-Semitic until one day he will have to prove it, in the court of law, and show [not only his Jewish hate for gentiles but] all the elements legally required to make his allegation true and not defamatory.

    1. (1) I know that you are Czech. But to my knowledge few Czechs named “Hans.” There are (or were) plenty of Germans in Czechoslovakia; I’m sure you’ve heard of the Sudetenland. Had the pun depended on the name “Schmuel,” I would have made the hypothetical schoolchild Jewish.

      (2) I agree that the case against Alvarez for anti-Semitism was weak and overblown.

      (3) We have a Christmas tree in our home and my wife and daughters love the holiday.

      (4) I took the first six pictures off of Santa Ana’s site. I would love to see you tell the guy in the bottom right that he is Latino. My guess is that he’d be affronted.

      (5) When I “one day have to prove it,” I will be able to start with your last two paragraphs.

      Merry Christmas, Stanley.

  15. [I know that you are Czech. But to my knowledge few Czechs named “Hans.” There are (or were) plenty of Germans in Czechoslovakia; I’m sure you’ve heard of the Sudetenland. Had the pun depended on the name “Schmuel,” I would have made the hypothetical schoolchild Jewish.]….. Hmmmmm

    Liar!

    You and I have clearly disused my involvement in the 1968 Prague Spring Uprising in my capacity as young Czechoslovakian Air Force Officer, in the OJB, prior to your hateful anti-Gentile statement alleging that I am German thus an anti-Semitic Nazi in your hateful Jewish head.

    Therefore, your misguided lawyerism alleging to be unaware (“to best of your knowledge”) will not fly.

    Even if I would be a German it would be anti-Gentile hateful and offensive statement made by a Jew.

    I assume that you are proud Jew same as I am proud Czech so by respectfully calling you Jew Diamond would be appropriate same as if you would call me Czech or Bohemian Fiala by which I would be proudly honored.

    We Czechs have good name in the world and if you wouldn’t be ignorant, you would know that it was Czechs who build the Israeli Air Force by bringing first bomber to Israel against the British embargo. You moron mongoloid.

  16. The Avia S-199 was a fighter aircraft built in Czechoslovakia after World War II using parts and plans left over from Luftwaffe aircraft production that had taken place in the country during the war. While a problematic aircraft, unpopular with its pilots, it achieved fame as the first fighter obtained by the Israeli Air Force for use during the War of Independence. Czechoslovak pilots nicknamed it Mezek (“Mule”), whilst in Israel it was known as the Messer (“knife”; it is a common mistake that it was nicknamed Sakeen; the official name was even different – Python).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avia — Leran you Jewis anti Gentile hater!

  17. HA! The keyboard war between Stanley Fiala and Greg Diamond has been the most entertaining thing I’ve read all day! Congrats guys, keep up the good work 😉

  18. Oh and by the way I was born in Fountain Valley and lived in Santa Ana all my 33 years pretty much and while I was indeed shock to find Santa ana as the fourth safest city at first, I looked back on my childhood and remembered how safe I felt in the community where I was living…not to say it wasn’t a few streets away from the “bad area” but even being so close to the ruff part of Santa Ana I felt safe and I would contribute it a lot to all the friends and good people I’ve meet throughout the years. Plus people forget how big Santa Ana really is. The area around South Coast Plaza is one of the richest and fastest growing areas in Santa ana and all you have to do is drive down the same street Bristol a few minutes and your in the “bad part” but even with that being the case its almost like there are so many more good parts of town than there are bad that “the safe zone” so to speak is always accessible. Well I’m high off that kush, thanks for reading my post. Oh and P.S. Over the years I’ve had long time friends move away to different parts of the nation Oregon, Nevada, Rhode Island, and they all say one thing. How they miss those Alberto’s burritos. You don’t have to go to Mexico for bomb food just hit up Little Tijuana aka Santa Ana 😉

  19. i was held a gun point twice almost got shot by a bullet that was meant for someone else and many more incidents that im not goin to bring up ahah Santa Ana is not safe.

  20. Santa Ana is not a safe city maybe it’s gone done in its crime rate based on more poverty struck cities. I have live more then half of my life in Santa Ana and I still remember gun shots every night. Getting a gun pulled to my face just for going to my friends house and where he lived was a safe place.

    1. No doubt. We used to go through that when we lived in the Artesia Pilar neighborhood. The truth is that the SAPD does not report every crime to the FBI. Or to the public. This keeps the numbers artificially low.

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