COLUMBIA, Maryland — On World Mental Health Day, it might make some local residents feel good to know they're living in America's safest city.
At least, that's according to the personal finance website WalletHub. They compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 42 key metrics and Columbia, Maryland came out on top.
The Howard County city won out when compared with other cities over factors such as vaccination levels against COVID-19, assaults, rapes and murders per capita, mass shootings, road quality, terrorist attacks and even the perception of safety in the city, to name a few.
Natural disaster risks -- such as wildfires, earthquakes and floods -- were all woven into the data as well. Financial safety was also considered, including unemployment rates, median credit scores, fraud complaints per capita and debt-to-income ratio.
Taking the second through fifth spots were Nashua, New Hampshire; Laredo, Texas; Portland, Maine; and Warwick, Rhode Island.
It's not the first time Columbia has received some national praise. In 2016, Money magazine named the Maryland city the top place to live in the United States, crowning it "one of the most successful planned communities in the country."
Washington, D.C. was also cited on WalletHub's list and took the number one spot in the country for law-enforcement employees per capita. Unfortunately, all of those employees only helped the city net spot 168 on the list of 182 total cities. St. Louis, Missouri, bottomed out the rankings.