The Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area is being called the third most peaceful metropolitan area in America.
The Institute for Economics and Peace released its second annual U.S. Peace Index Tuesday, finding that the country is more peaceful now than at any time over the past 20 years.
The Peace Index measures peacefulness according to five indicators:
- Number of homicides
- Number of violent crimes
- Incarceration rate
- Number of police employees
- Availability of small arms
Portland also made the top 10 and Tacoma, Wash. ranked 12th.
- Cambridge-Newton-Framingham, MA
- Edison-New Brunswick- NJ
- Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA
- Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
- Peabody, MA
- Providence-New Bedford-Fall River RI-MA
- Lake County-Kenosha County, IL-WI
- Nassau-Suffolk, NY
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA
- Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, MI
- Tacoma, WA
- Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT
- Camden, NJ
- Raleigh-Cary, NC
The five least-peaceful cities were Detroit, New Orleans, Miami, Baltimore and Houston.
Washington state is ranked 7th most peaceful in the country behind Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah and North Dakota.
Other findings:
- The homicide rate decreased by 3.78%, the violent crime rate fell 6.03%, and the total number of state prisoners fell by 0.6% year-over-year.
- The homicide rate has decreased by over 50% since 1991, and there have been similar reductions in the rate of assaults, rapes, and robberies.
