The 10 safest suburbs in America

Mayberry has nothing on these safe havens

The term suburbia conjures images of little pink houses, soccer fields and bike trails. But crime is no respecter of persons, and a zip code outside the city limits doesn't guarantee safety.

Luckily, the crew at MOVOTO has used FBI crime data to assemble a list of the safest suburbs in America, so now you can have the 4/2 ranch with all the upgrades, minus the crime scene tape.

The MOVOTO blog looked at the 120 largest suburbs of the 50 most populous cities, and factored in property crimes per capita, violent crimes per capita and the chances of being the victim of a crime.

The score is weighted so that violent crime counted as 50%, property crime as 30% and the chance of being a victim of a crime was 20%. Eight out of the 10 reported no homicides, and the other two had only one homicide each.

In reverse order, here are the suburbs most likely to succeed at being Mayberry.

10. Germantown, Tennessee

This suburb of Memphis is the smallest suburb in the top 10 with only 39,000 people. Your chance of being the victim of crime is 1 in 60, and the vast majority of those crimes were property-related. Zillow lists the median price of homes that sold at $260,700.

9. Cupertino, California

This suburb of San Jose offers great tech jobs (home to Apple headquarters) and a 1 in 68 chance that you'll be the vicitim of a crime. Considering the super-hot area it's in, it's not surprising that this suburb is the priciest on the list, with the median price of homes sold at $1,116,000, according to Zillow.

8. Oro Valley, Arizona

This suburb of Tucson did report one homicide, but with a popultion of 41,000 it scored high in terms of violent crimes per capita, with only 21 violent crimes total. Median price of sold homes is a mild $251,860.

7. Apex, North Carolina

A bedroom community for Raleigh, the odds of being a victim of a crime in Apex are 1 in 69. The median price of sold homes is currently $250,550, but Zillow lists the market temperature of this suburb as very hot, with home values going up 5.6% in the past year, and another 2.5% rise predicted this year. 

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6. Cary, North Carolina

Also a suburb of Raleigh, and lying just north of Apex, this town is the biggest on the list at 146,000. Despite the bigger size there were no homicides reported, and the odds of crime are 1 in 72. The housing market here is a little cooler than its neighbor, and the median home price of sold homes is $253,150.

5. Newton, Massachusetts

This suburb's location next to Boston makes its safety rating a bit surprising, but the chances of being a victim of a crime are only 1 in 88, and there were no homicides reported. Apparently its good reputation is getting out, as Newton home values went up more than 11% last year and now sit at $758,800 for median price of homes sold. 

4. Dublin, Ohio

Dublin did report one homicide, but with only 15 total violent crimes in a town of 41,751, your odds of being a victim of violent crime is very low. This suburb of Columbus offers very affordable housing at $124,475 for the median price of homes sold.

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3. Parma, Ohio

The odds of crime in this suburb of Cleveland were a mere 1 in 161. The town of 82,000 residents comes in at the most affordable on our list, with the median price of sold homes at $87,175.

2. Fishers, Indiana

Fishers was a close runner up to first place, with only 14 violent crimes reported among nearly 70,000 residents. It's a suburb of Indianapolis and the median price of homes listed is $224,900.

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1. Carmel, Indiana

Narrowly edging out Fishers, this neighboring city was named the Best Place to Live in America by CNN Money Magazine in 2012. With a population of 80,000, the suburb of Indianapolis reported only 11 violent crimes in 2012, none of them homicides. Your chance of being the victim of a crime were 1 in 97, and the median price of homes currently listed is $369,995. 

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