Were we to consider safety to be synonymous with safety from crime, St. Louis would have taken first place hands-down, with a homicide rate of 57.7 per 100,000 (close to 20 times the national average of 3.4 per 100,000). St. Louis also takes first place for the number of EPA-designated contaminated sites and toxic chemical releases, both absolutely and relative to the city’s greatly diminished population. St. Louis is only slightly safer according to other measures, with a lower rate of losses due to natural disaster, and lower foreclosure and fatal drug overdose rates than most of the other cities on this list.So basically, the only thing keeping us from the No. 1 ranking is that a) we don't have any risk of hurricanes or volcano eruptions and b) somehow, despite a major drug problem and some real housing issues, other cities' drug problems and housing issues are even worse. This, surely, is not the good news we've been waiting for.
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