For the second straight year, a Web site that deals with real estate has ranked the City of Bridgeport among the top 10 safest cities to live in West Virginia.

 

The Web site, HomeSnacks recently released its list and Bridgeport made the cut. Several local cities were on the top 10 safest places.

 

HomeSnacks is a Web site that combines recent data from the Census, FBI, OpenStreetMaps, and multiple other sources into, according to their site, “bite-sized studies to help you understand what it’s like to live in different communities across the country.”

 

In this particular study Bridgeport, which came in fourth place last year, just made the cut this year. The city is ranked in the number 10 spot. As mentioned, Bridgeport wasn’t alone on the top 10 as far as local communities.

 

Grafton earned the top spot in the rankings as half of the top 10 were from North Central West Virginia. Morgantown was fourth followed by Fairmont in seventh and Buckhannon at the eighth spot.

 

“We see a change in crimes we deal with yearly so we feel fortunate to have that ranking. Part of it is that we have well-trained officers that are proactive,” said Bridgeport Police Chief John Walker. “They’re out there patrolling and looking for things as opposed to sitting around and waiting for calls to come in.”

 

So how did HomeSnacks come up with their rankings? Although some may disagree with the rankings, it’s not an opinion poll. The primary source of information is the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, which summarizes the number of property crimes and violent crimes in each city per year.

 

The Web site utilized two key criteria from that report. Violent crimes per capita (this includes murders, assaults, rapes, armed robberies) and property crimes per capita (this includes thefts, burglaries, motor vehicle thefts.) What may hurt Bridgeport here is the theft portion, which due to it having a substantial retail base sees shoplifting included in the property crimes portion of the rankings.

 

“With so many shopping opportunities it creates a lot of retail theft, which isn’t uncommon for anyone with the same situation,” said Walker. “The good news is we’ve been able to solve a lot of case recently, particularly with the help of the media and social media and groups like Connect-Bridgeport where we put out the information and the public assists.”

 

Here’s what the Web site had to say about Bridgeport: “They crushed our snackability scale with a 7/10 safety ranking and an 8.5/10 affordability score. We all could learn a little somethin' from the residents in Bridgeport. #kudos

 

“Bridgeport's town motto is "Opportunity Lives Here". And we can't deny the numbers, right? This city scored a 9/10 job rating: the highest on our list, and a 9/10 education rating. Nothin' says safe like a bunch of smart people with jobs!”

 

HomeSnacks rankings features cities, counties, states and even neighborhoods from across the country. The Web site has been doing rankings for more than three years.

 

“We’re still a very safe city,” said Walker. “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”