Press release from AdvisorSmith:
AdvisorSmith released its newest report on the “Safest Cities in North Carolina.” From our research, we discovered that Asheville is the #16 safest large city in North Carolina.
Our study analyzed violent and property crimes from 17 large, 57 midsize, and 174 small cities. Crime scores were calculated for each city and the cities were ranked to find the safest places in North Carolina.
We discovered that:
- Asheville had a total crime score of 112.4, which was above the average of 74 in large North Carolina cities with over 100,000 residents. Biltmore Forest (#5 small), Fletcher (#21 small), Mars Hill (#24 small)
- Asheville’s violent crime rate was 26.2 per 1000 residents, compared with an average of 17.3 per 1000 in large North Carolina cities.
- The city’s property crime rate was 51.4 per 1000 residents. Statewide, the average property crime rate in large cities was 29.8 per 1000.
You can see our complete study and the rest of the cities here: https://advisorsmith.com/data/safest-cities-in-north-carolina.
Police need to do their jobs and get out in the community and observe what’s happening. Stop sitting around the station talking about your guns.
Find out who is committing crimes qnd where then devise a strategy. No not profiling….its called statistical analysis.
People committing crimes are likely doing so because they can’t afford to live, sleep, or eat in this overblown, dangerously apathetic community posing as a liberal town. I can’t wait to leave. Holding my breath and making my plans.
Coming from a Law Enforcement Family with a close cousin who just retired from a Florida Police Department after 31 years, my cousin solved 600 Violent Crime Cold Cases in his career. All the while, he worked closely with ALL members of the community to be a unifier and reach out to young troubled youth to make sure they felt valued and had their voices heard. What has happened with the killings across this country is absolutely intolerable and the officers who abuse their power must face swift and severe punishment, but let not forget we all need the police to protect and serve this great land and 98% of Law Enforcement has answered a calling much like a doctor, lawyer, nurse or teacher. I live in the neighborhood adjacent to AB Tech and I rarely see APD interacting with my neighborhood. Gone are the days where a Policeman walked a beat. They stay in their patrol units and swoop in and out of my neighborhood like a butterfly trying to reacted versus being proactive. When APD was callled to report 2 AK-47’s stashed in one of the neighborhoods renovation home basements – APD came in with zero empathy for the neighbors and did nothing to follow back up with the Contractor who turned the guns in. In fact, shortly after APD left the property, the Contractor had the thugs return and threathen his life if he did not produce the weapons. One da y while mowing my lawn a car drove by, slowed down and threw a lit firecracker at my face and the thug stated White Mother Fxxker. Imagine how I felt when the APD took that call. Their is no such thing as reverse racism. Racism is the worst kind of hate and no one should ever be able to hide from this evil thinking. One last thing before I conclude this, I am astonished at the nightly fireworks, the dumb ass drivers and loud motorcycles that speed through my neighborhood like it is end of days. All the while taunting the APD to do anything about the recent killings in our park. Regardless of which side of the political aisle you sit on, these lawless anarchists are not peaceful protestors. I hope when the world comes through COVID we are a more united planet. I grew up in a 75% African American community and have numerous friends in this neighborhood who have rich backgrounds who’s voices deserve to be heard by APD. The Police Chief, officers and administration of APD should be breaking their backs to reach out to this community with love not hate and bigotry. They should host neighborhood watch meetings safely on Zoom and do everything in their power to unite this community.
Hi. I have been considering moving to Asheville because it’s beautiful. I wonder how police interact with Black people there. And as a woman, would I be safe from scary racists in this climate. I appreciate your story.
I’ve lived here 11 years.
Haven’t seen any racists at all! I’m sure like ever were else, there are a few. But over all a very safe city.
You must own a business here that would suffer if people began fleeing in droves. We are in the top 10 in the entire country for crime and this is a largely Caucasian town. People of color who move here are not really welcome. In my profession, I have seen direct evidence of racism towards students and their families in the public school system. So no, people of color should absolutely not feel confident moving here, although if more would, perhaps things would change.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism in Asheville, NC towards black people. It is predominately white with little diversity.
The place is shit. I had the idea of moving here, and I’ll be leaving asap. I can handle inner city life, but it’s like Chicago, without any resources.
You mean like you. I would suggest so you feel safe, I would actually do a search and get actual facts on the number of serious crimes and who is committing those crimes and the area they most occur. And, I am not talking about being pulled over for a traffic ticket, or something minor. I am talking about, rape, murder, discharging a gun, robbery, arson etc. I think those are the kinds of things you want to focus on, and would truly affect anyone as we all want to feel safe.
They cannot spend all the time you think they should in your neighborhood and I don’t believe they are sitting at headquarters devising strategies. They had to go to another call. If they get out of their cars they would probably get killed. The problem in these communities is unemployed young people who have been taught from birth white people will not allow them to succeed so they should not try. People who are taught they can succeed usually do. I didn’t say TOLD!! I said TAUGHT!! There is a difference.
This report raises serious questions as the city council struggles with “reimagining public safety.” Are we just better at reporting crimes, or is there a real deficit in public safety compared to our peer cities? If it is the latter, we should analyze the drivers of the crime statistics and make sure our redesign includes proven strategies to make the city safer.
Geesh. Been researching Asheville as a city I’m considering moving to. Surprised to see the not so good crime rates
Crime is getting worse due to a complacent city manager and a hamstrung PD. Not safe in Asheville anymore, thanks to Democrats cow towing to the criminals.
The Mayor and City Council must be a total failure if the Vance monument is a priority. What a scam.
This is absolutely untrue and only demonstrates your bias towards people who actually practice critical thinking and don’t just act based on what their genitalia is telling them to do. Grow up.
Save yourself. Don’t move here. I did one year ago and I regret it. Tourist trap saturated with more strung-out addicts than I’ve seen anywhere else.
Just visiting Asheville and surprised to see parks full of homeless and addicts. Whatever policies are in place don’t seem to be working.
Look who running the city, and that will tell you why Asheville, which was a fantastic town 35 years ago, is now turning into a lawless mess. Very sad. When you fail to uphold laws, society suffers every time!
I love this city. I lived about an hour away for most of my life and I’ve lived here for 4 years. I’ve only had positive and helpful experiences with local cops. They are way better than small town bored officers. If you want real crime solved short of an active burglary or a murder (maybe) it is typically more effective to not call the police and do your own work. That is the case all over this country it’s not an apd problem. About half of my friends in this city are black and they don’t seem to have any harassment issues living here anymore. Asheville is not an unsafe place to live. The issues we have here are directly related to gentrification brought on by the hotel conglomerates that run our city without any oversight. The cost of living is the only real downside of living here, all the other issues are universal national issues and my opinion is that the pros outweigh the cons greatly.
Why should APD bother to go out into the community? It has been made clear by the community, the mayor and the city council that they do not support the police. These men and women risk their lives everyday and all they have received in return is a city full of ungrateful residents who would like nothing more than to defund the department and disband the force. So guess what after loading 30% of the department, including most of the tenured officers and the fact that no one wants to work for Asheville PD I can’t imagine why the crime rate is so high……You reap what you sow and the city has chosen to sow that they don’t need police so stop complaining that the crime rate is high. Just wait until it effects tourism and the money that won’t be coming in because people don’t want to visit a crime ridden, dirty, nasty city.
My wife and I visited Asheville several times, and even took our NY State Corvette Club there for a two day retreat at Biltmore, on our way to Pigeon Forge ( Tail of the Dragon), and considered retirement there.
That was until we heard about the dismal police department and democrats pandering to the criminals.
We are retiring in Texas where the republican strong hold will leave us a safe environment and gun laws resident protected as desired.
What part of Texas? I also have thought about retiring to Asheville, until I saw all the dismal facts about what is going on now.
For such a small city, the transient homeless population is ridiculous. Everyone has a dream of doing better in a new place, but believe me, this isn’t the place, you’ll end up panhandling on the corners leading to nothing.
This over hyped tourist town has so many people who don’t consider whole populations of people.
If you are disabled or elderly, this town is hellish.
They don’t prosecute pedophiles nor famous artists who were rapists.
This town cares about one thing only,profiting off others misery
We left Asheville a year ago mostly because of the crime, the traffic and the overall decline in quality of life. Well I’m not a blue lives matter person or Black Lives Matter person I do think that it is a bit intellectually dishonest to blame the police entirely for the crime. The city is not paying them a living wage so they really don’t have a personal interest in keeping Asheville safe. Why would they?
Asheville is not safe and it’s not safe for a lot of reasons. Asheville is not desirable anymore and that is also for a lot of reasons and a lot of those reasons have to do with greed in Corporatism. Asheville has become a beer town with an art problem. Its amenities are overrated. Asheville is infested with panhandlers pretending to be homeless and the police are not allowed to run them off.
When the Black Lives Matter protest got out of hand there was a lot of blame to go around I’m both a part of the police and the protesters from what I could tell. Certainly there were a lot of outside agitators from far right organizations coming in but the local police were out of control and perhaps they were provoked into becoming out of control. Asheville has gone through quite a few police chiefs over the years so it would seem that perhaps there are members of the department that are unmanageable. It’s also important to remember that the same anti-American thugs voted in Madison Cawthorn came to Asheville during the protests to create mayhem.
Clearly, Asheville’s best days are behind it. It used to be one of the best places to live. The quality of life descended so rapidly that we had to leave for safety of a family and a peace of mind. In addition to that healthcare in western North Carolina is atrocious and the city allowed one of the most criminal companies in the world hospital corporation of America to take over mission hospital. The medical mafia is thriving in western North Carolina. Criminality in Healthcare is common all over the country but it is worse in Asheville and western North Carolina.
The upside to us leaving as we got a lot of money for a property there. The hype machine is still saying Asheville is a wonderful place but the truth is it’s not a nice place to visit and I’m glad I don’t live there. The day we left there were three shootings.