Less than half of Americans surveyed believe Philadelphia is a safe place to visit or live, according to a new Gallup poll.
The poll about perceptions of 16 major U.S. cities, which was conducted in July and released last week, found that 47% of surveyed Americans said they believe Philadelphia is safe. The poll is based on how respondents perceive a city’s safety, regardless of whether they have actually been there. It’s unclear what percentage of respondents were familiar with the city. It’s also worth noting that people’s perceptions don’t necessarily mirror crime data points, and the poll did not define “safety” for its respondents.
The poll was based on telephone interviews conducted in July with a random sample of 1,015 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Each city was rated by a random half-sample of approximately 500 adults.
When prompted with a city’s name, respondents replied “safe” or “unsafe” according to Gallup. From there, the samples were weighted to reflect U.S. population demographics.
According to the poll, Dallas and Boston ranked highest in perceived safety, with about three-quarters of participants viewing the cities as “safe.” Detroit and Chicago scored the lowest, with only 26% and 27% of poll-takers, respectively, ranking them as safe.
Angela Val, president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia, says the tourism group has been conducting its own research with Ipsos on visitors’ perceptions.
“Our data does show that safety concerns rank among the top factors of consideration for Philadelphia, as well as most other East Coast cities,” Val said.
She added that Philly’s reputation with travelers is largely driven by endorsements from friends, family, and social networks.
“So while perceptions around safety exist, what our data show is that many other factors contribute to visitation of a city, including that it’s a destination that could be visited repeatedly, has a fun and exciting atmosphere, is walkable, has appealing neighborhoods, and always has new things to do,” she said.
In Philly, gun violence has been an ongoing problem with ups and downs for decades. Shootings have surged since 2020 as the city grappled with the coronavirus pandemic, economic strife, and social unrest. Similar upticks have been noted nationwide.
And although data show that homicides in Philly are down compared with this time last year, the pace remains higher than it was in 2020 when the gun violence crisis ramped up. As reported by The Inquirer last month, if the rate of killings continues, it will mark the city’s fourth-highest number of homicides in a single year since the 1990s.
Philly’s reputation appears to have worsened over nearly two decades by Gallup poll standards, with a 6% decline in the percentage of people who think the city is safe now compared with 2006. However, in 2006, Philadelphia had the highest murder rate among the country’s 10 largest cities. Today, that ranking has dropped significantly.
Gallup has gauged Americans’ views of cities’ safety seven times since 1990. These responses appear to align with what Philadelphians have said about not feeling any safer amid surging gun violence despite new political and community safety efforts.
A study from the Brookings Institution earlier this year went as far as calling Philadelphia’s downtown “remarkably safe.”
“However, every single neighborhood in Philadelphia should enjoy the same distinction,” Val said. “Both residents and visitors should have an expectation of safety, and it will take a collective, citywide effort to realize that goal and shift broader perceptions of safety.”
The poll participants’ perception of safety in cities across the country, including Philadelphia, also wavered depending on respondents’ political views.
Sixty-five percent of Democrats or left-leaning independent survey participants said they thought Philly is safe, compared with less than a third of Republicans or right-leaning independents. Democratic city officials in Philly have said that to reduce homicides, the Republican-led state Senate needs to pass stronger gun laws.
Political ideology appeared to define the Gallup poll participants’ perceptions of safety in major cities across the country, with as much as a 43%-gap between Democrat and Republican participants’ views.
It wasn’t always this way. In 2006, Gallup said political partisanship didn’t influence the way cities were perceived.
“Views of cities’ safety also reflect recent trends in crime statistics,” Gallup said. “High-profile public situations — such as the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the creation of the autonomous zone in Seattle, and a heavy focus on gun violence in Chicago — most likely have affected views of crime in those cities.”
The Gallup poll did not cite why respondents perceived a city as safe versus unsafe.
In the Gallup poll, Philly was viewed as safer only than Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles out of the list of 16 cities gauged.
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