Safest Neighborhoods in Seattle (2024)
Seattle's open crime data doesn't include a reliable neighborhood-level population figure, so these SPD neighborhoods are ranked by reported incident volume, not a population-adjusted safety rate. A lower ranking here means fewer severity-weighted reported incidents relative to other Seattle SPD neighborhoods.
Volume, not a safety rate. SPD neighborhood (MCPP) resident population is not reliably available for a per-100k rate, so no safety grade is published for any zone (see /crime-rate/methodology §6.6). The geographic unit is the SPD neighborhood (MCPP) (a policing/analysis boundary, not a resident-population neighborhood). relativeIndex ranks each zone by its VIOLENCE-WEIGHTED reported-incident volume (violent incidents weighted 3x property) against the other Seattle zones — it is NOT population-adjusted and must not be read as a safety rate. Offenses are grouped into three coarse buckets (violent / property / other) via a keyword classifier.
Ranked lowest to highest reported volume
Not the same SPD neighborhoods shown on the most dangerous neighborhoods in Seattle list.
- 1Capitol HillVol. 0/100
- 2Downtown CommercialVol. 26/100
- 3NorthgateVol. 32/100
- 4Queen AnneVol. 34/100
- 5Slu/CascadeVol. 34/100
- 6UniversityVol. 41/100
- 7First HillVol. 44/100
- 8Ballard SouthVol. 51/100
- 9Roosevelt/RavennaVol. 51/100
- 10Chinatown/International DistrictVol. 58/100
- 11LakecityVol. 59/100
- 12Central Area/Squire ParkVol. 64/100
- 13SandpointVol. 65/100
- 14BelltownVol. 67/100
- 15BitterlakeVol. 67/100
- 16North Beacon HillVol. 68/100
- 17GreenwoodVol. 74/100
- 18Mount BakerVol. 74/100
- 19Roxhill/Westwood/Arbor HeightsVol. 75/100
- 20Alaska JunctionVol. 77/100
- 21Rainier BeachVol. 77/100
- 22SodoVol. 77/100
- 23Ballard NorthVol. 78/100
- 24Pioneer SquareVol. 78/100
- 25FremontVol. 79/100
No area has zero risk
A high Crime Index score means lower reported crime relative to other US cities — it is not a guarantee of safety. Reported crime is not the same as actual crime. Research on the gap between crime that occurs and crime that gets reported to police — often called the "dark figure" of crime — estimates that roughly 40% of violent crime and about a third of property crime go unreported each year. Every index built on official statistics, including this one, necessarily undercounts real crime. That gap is exactly why homicide — the offense with the smallest dark figure — anchors the calculation instead of a more commonly reported but less reliable category like theft.
Scores on this page reflect FBI-reported data for 2024. See the full methodology →