Twin Cities Metro Area Ranks as Safest "City" in America

According to Forbes.com, the Minneapolis - Saint Paul - Burnsville metropolitan area is the safest in America. The Twin Cities metro area ranked #1 in the top 10 of the 2009 America's Safest Cities list. The ranking was based on crime rates, traffic deaths, workplace fatalities and risk of natural disasters. The Minneapolis - Twin Cities metropolitan area ranked the best in each of these categories, including the lowest rate of on-the-job deaths.

Forbes.com based its rankings on a study of the nation's top 40 metropolitan areas, looking at 2008 numbers from a number of organizations including National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It also collected historical natural disaster data from a number of different government agencies and looked at violent crime rates from the FBI's 2008 uniform crime report.

The top five safest cities are as follows:

1. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Burnsville, Minn.
2. Milwaukee, Wis.
3. Portland, Ore.
4. Boston, Mass.
5. Seattle, Wash.

The full listing of Forbes.com's America's Safest Cities.