The city of Loudon is the safest city in Tennessee, according to rankings from an insurance research company.
ValuePenguin, which provides data to auto, home and health insurance companies, analyzed the most recently available crime data from the FBI to determine the safety of cities in Tennessee.
Of the 89 cities analyzed, Loudon had the lowest crime score with just five violent crimes and 47 property crimes for 2013, the lowest in the state.
Signal Mountain ranked second in the entire state. Soddy-Daisy was named the third safest midsize city. Collegedale came in 14th on the overall list.
Maryville was listed at 24. Lenoir City was listed at 36, Knoxville ranked 81, Nashville 83 and Memphis was last at 89.
Loudon Police Chief James Webb said he's not surprised his town is at the top of the list.
"A whole lot of it has to do with the community. The community desires that this be a safe place to live," he said.
Loudon TN. Photo by Brian Stansberry.Rankings were also determined based on the size of the city. Among the safest big cities Brentwood ranked No. 1. Among mid-sized cities White House was first. Loudon was first among small cities.
To rank the cities Value Penguin collected data from the 2013 FBI crime statistics by city, which provides the most recent crime data available.
The raw data report included property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson), and violent crimes (murder/manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) from all law enforcement agencies that chose to partake in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program
The data was standardized to reflect violent and property crimes per 100,000, to account for population. A crime score was aggregated by weighting violent crime at 90 percent and property crime at 10 percent.
Though property crime is more prevalent, researchers figured that violent crime is more concerning to town residents. The score was then adjusted for population size, giving more slack to larger cities. The cities were then ranked based on their crime scores.