by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Cold Spring and St. Joseph are the second and third safest cities in Minnesota, according to ValuePenguin, a consumer research company.
ValuePenguin rated Hibbing as the safest city. In the top 10, the other seven safest cities, after Hibbing, Cold Spring and St. Joseph, are in the following order: Corcoran, Minnetrista, Kasson, Wyoming, Orono, West Hennepin and Rosemount.
Here is what the ratings staff had to say about Cold Spring and St. Joseph:
Cold Spring
“The least populous among our top five, Cold Spring’s second-place finish is due to its lack of violent crimes, with just one. The city’s average home value, $149,945, is actually 15 percent less than the state’s average. Locals here have much to take pride in beyond their safety record. They have a strong argument to make that they’re the granite capital of the world, plus their award-winning brewery dates back to 1874.”
St. Joseph
“Just 10 miles northeast of Cold Spring, St. Joseph ranks third despite reporting 40 property crimes in 2013. The city’s seven-officer police department stresses the importance of community policing. The city has long been affected by one mysterious (unsolved) violent crime: the 1989 abduction of then-11-year-old Jacob Wetterling.”
The ratings of Minnesota cities by ValuePenguin were based on the latest crime statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both violent crimes and property crimes were added to ValuePenguin’s rating system, which assigned points from 0 to 4,000, with the safest cities having the lower number of points. Hibbing, the safest city, had a point total of 55. Cold Spring’s rating was 119, St Joseph’s 166.
A total of 129 cities made the list, with St. Paul and Minneapolis being the last on the list. St. Paul’s score was 2,857; the Minneapolis score was 3,934.
Other central Minnesota cities that made the list are Sartell, number 26 with a score of 454; Sauk Rapids, number 35 with a score of 510; St. Cloud, number 120 with a score of 1,860; and Waite Park, number 127 with a score of 2,670.
The ValuePenguin analysis rated the 129 cities also by category: large cities, medium cities, small cities. Sartell ranked fifth among the 10 safest cities in the medium-sized city category, and Sauk Rapids ranked eighth in that category. St. Joseph ranked second of the top 10 in the small-town category.
