A recent report has identified the five safest cities in Arizona and also noted a significant drop in violent crime experiences as well as a slight decrease in property crime experiences.
The report from Safewise found the ten safest cities in Arizona are (ranked order): Oro Valley, Queen Creek, Gilbert, Sahuarita, Surprise, Buckeye, Maricopa, Marana, Chandler, and Prescott Valley. Twenty-five cities in total were ranked.
The five lowest ranked were Apache Junction, Avondale, Casa Grande, Glendale, and Tempe. For comparison: the violent crime reported per 1,000 people in Oro Valley was 0.55 and property crimes per 1,000 people were 11.51. Tempe with over quadruple the population has 5.2 violent crimes per 1,000 people and 36.13 property crimes per 1,000 people.
Zeroing in on the reports findings, SafeWise found that the five safest cities collective violent crime rate is 1.0 incidents per 1,000 people while property crime was 10.4 incidents per 1,000 people. The report also found that the number of Arizonans surveyed who said they feel safe jumped up 5% from 36% to 41%.
SafeWise Managing Editor and Safety Expert, Rebecca Edwards said in a statement, “Violent crime experiences are trending down across Arizona, and mass shootings dropped by more than 60% year over year—from eight in 2023 to just three in 2024. Cities like Queen Creek and Surprise saw decreases in both violent and property crime, showing that safety is improving for many Arizona communities.”
According to the report, although 63% of Arizonans surveyed were concerned about property crime on a daily basis, personal experiences with property crime dropped year over year with just 26% of respondents reporting a personal experience with property crime in the past year.
Arizonans are also ranked third for adopting the use of security cameras for their homes, following Delaware and Louisiana. As a matter of preference most Arizonans surveyed, 59%, preferred security cameras or guard dogs, 44%.
Overall, Arizona respondents were most concerned over violent crime, although violent crime experiences fell from 19% to 11% year over year.
Approximately 14% of Arizonans polled reported carrying a firearm for personal protection and 33% reportedly own one for property protection. Incongruently, the number concerned about gun violence increased from 58% to 67% despite a decrease in mass-shootings.
According to SafeWise, the report was generated from “voluntary, self-reported information that cities and jurisdictions across the country report through the FBI Summary Reporting System (SRS) and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). For our 2025 reporting year, the most recent FBI data was released in October 2024 for crimes reported in 2023.” The company’s full report and methodology is available here.
The city of Tempe houses the nation’s first planned car-free community: a rental neighborhood called “Culdesac.”
The community is a smaller version of the 15-minute city concept: a design concept in which residents can access daily essentials like work, stores, and schools within a walkable or bikeable 15-minute radius. Culdesac, located on Apache Boulevard, covers 17 acres of land and offers over 700 pet-friendly apartments for rent.
Since Culdesac residents would live without the ability to travel with ease outside the community, the real estate developer partnered with city government and vehicle rental companies to provide transport outside the community.
Valley Metro will provide free rides on the light rail. Lyft, the ridesharing service, will offer 15 percent off their rides. Envoy, an electric carsharing service, will offer reduced rentals at $5 an hour. The company will also have Bird scooters on site, and allocate over 1,000 bike parking spots.
Other partners include Lugg, an on-demand moving company; Lectric eBikes; Cocina Chiwas, a restaurant; and Archer’s Bikes, a bike sales company.
Car-centric cities are out, walkable cities are in.
The community has a single central mailroom, one resident gym, one restaurant, one coffee shop, two boutique community shops, one grocery store, and a bike shop.
Many of the staffers behind Culdesac have roots with Opendoor Technologies, an online company based out of San Francisco, California that purchases, flips, and resells residential real estate.
The co-founder and CEO of Culdesac, Ryan Johnson, was on Opendoor’s founding team and their vice president of operations for four years. Additionally, Johnson previously worked for Bain Capital, New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Chilean government’s urban planning initiatives.
Other former Opendoor colleagues include Tom Barta, Culdesac’s engineering lead who built the software foundation for Opendoor home loans; Vanessa Valenzuela Erickson, Culdesac’s founding team member and advisor who was one of Opendoor’s managers, and formerly an employee for Teach for America and the Salt River Project; Megan Meyer Toolson, Culdesac’s president of sell direct and services who held the same role at Opendoor; and Evan Moore, Culdesac’s partner at Khosla Ventures who was Opendoor’s vice president of product and the co-founder and COO of Doordash.
Studio apartments start at $1,300 a month, while three-bedroom apartments start at $3,200 a month.
The real estate developer said that it also designed its buildings to mitigate the harsh desert heat and sun.
Our buildings are oriented to maximize shade and adapt to the desert environment, providing comfort and increasing energy efficiency pic.twitter.com/TtASbEWHPW
Though its first by design, Culdesac isn’t the first community to be car-free in the nation or in the state. One in Arizona is car-free, but not by choice: Supai, the capital of the Havasupai Indian Reservation located within the Grand Canyon, is a remote community accessible only by an eight-mile hike by foot or mule, or a 3,000-foot helicopter ride.
Several other communities have been car-free, for a variety of reasons: Bald Head Island in North Carolina, Colonial Williamsburg and Tangier Island in Virginia; Daufuskie Island in South Carolina; Fire Island and Governors Island in New York; Halibut Cove in Alaska; Mackinac Island in Michigan; and Santa Catalina Island in California.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The city with the largest number of credit card owners was Port St. Lucie, Florida, followed by Nashua, New Hampshire; Irvine, California; Garden Grove, California; and Cape Coral, Florida, WalletHub’s Wednesday survey showed.
“Port St. Lucie, FL ranks first because residents own a lot of cards and are adding new accounts quickly,” WalletHub editor John Kiernan said. “Port St. Lucie residents opened more credit cards than people in any other city during Q4 2023, at 1.45 cards on average. People in Port St. Lucie own an average of 6.39 credit cards, which is more than the average in all but three other cities, so it’s especially important for residents to ensure they make all their monthly payments on time and avoid overspending.”
Wallethub conducted the survey to determine which areas might be financially vulnerable this year, as credit card debt continues to climb due to inflation and record-high interest rates.
“There isn’t a magic number of credit cards you should have in your wallet. It’s good to own multiple cards if you can manage them well, by paying on time, keeping your credit utilization low and waiting at least six months between applications,” Kiernan said. “However, if you’re opening new cards simply to spend beyond your means, you’ll quickly find many cards hard to manage.”
The report measured the average number of cards owned per person and the average number of new cards opened per person in Q4 2023, as well as the percent change in both from Q4 2022.
Residents of Grand Rapids, Michigan; Honolulu, Hawaii; Wichita, Kansas; Huntington, West Virginia; Portland, Maine; Des Moines, Iowa; South Burlington, Vermont; Lincoln, Nebraska; Pearl City, Hawaii; and Washington, D.C. had the least credit cards.
Tempe is home to Tempe Town Lake, Arizona’s second most popular public attraction, drawing 2.4 million visitors and generating nearly $2 billion in economic impact since its opening.
Technology, restaurants, retail, and hospitality are all rapidly growing in Tempe.
“We have a lot of corporate offices along Rio Salado. So, you’ve got a lot of larger players like Caravana, State Farm, and Open Door,” Colin Diaz, president, and CEO of the Tempe Chamber of Commerce, told Fox 10. “We still have a decent amount of health care. There’s financial tech that’s growing as well, manufacturing is still a pretty good space.”
In 2021, Tempe had a population of 179,000 with a median age of 29.6 and a median household income of $64,080.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
On Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona announced that it had arrested a Tempe man this past weekend “on a federal complaint and arrest warrant by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for making a threat to execute a local Rabbi and ‘every other JEW [sic] I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath.’”
According to the press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona, “the complaint alleges that (the Tempe man) sent an email on the morning of Friday November 3, 2023, to a Rabbi at a local synagogue in Scottsdale, asking the Rabbi to ‘try to convince’ a judge in Utah to ‘drop the charges against’ (him) in a state district court case in Utah. The email stated: ‘If you do not use your influence to right this wrong I will execute you and every other JEW [sic] I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath.’ The email went on: ‘If you wish to communicate with me further, I will only meet in person,’ listed an address for the sender in Tempe, and was signed ‘Shalom, Viktor Sitkevicz.’”
United States Attorney Gary Restaino issued a statement in conjunction with the announcement, saying, “Civic engagement and civil dialogue help bind us together as a Nation. We have no tolerance for those who send threatening communications to Jewish faith leaders or to any other people in America. We will continue to exercise our prosecutorial discretion and deploy our resources to charge threats cases here in Arizona.”
The acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix field office, Chad Alvarado, added, “The FBI takes all threats of violence seriously. The FBI and our law enforcement partners must take people who make threats at their word and intervene, because protecting human life is our absolute priority.”
In the release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona credits the FBI for conducting this investigation and the Tempe Police Department and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for assisting.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Last week, the city of Tempe approved a $315,000 salary for their new city manager, Rosa Inchausti, a principal figure behind Tempe’s diversity initiatives, police reform, and COVID-19 lockdowns.
The $315,000 salary is just the low end of what Inchausti may make in the near future. Incahusti may receive an annual merit step increase of up to five percent of her salary based on her performance beginning this week, or up to $15,750.
Inchausti is a 30-year veteran of the Tempe government who began as a marriage and family counselor for the city but for the past 20 years has led on progressive reforms for the city.
Inchausti was appointed the director to the city’s first diversity program in 2002, after the city faced a discrimination lawsuit and an investigation from then-Attorney General Janet Napolitano into the town for alleged workplace discrimination. (Ten years later, Napolitano would face a discrimination lawsuit of her own while leading the Department of Homeland Security, ultimately settling on the allegations that she permitted discrimination against male staffers). The diversity program quickly became a model that other cities sought to emulate.
Four years into her tenure as Tempe’s first diversity director, Wrangler News interviewed Inchausti on her claims that her diversity work had improved employee morale. However, a follow-up audit at the time saw an increase in employees who reported witnessing or experiencing inappropriate treatment, and a coalition of residents and former employees were challenging the city council on the city’s work environment.
In 2014, Inchausti concocted Tempe’s Anti-Discrimination Ordinance.
That ordinance prohibits discrimination on sexual orientation, gender identity, familial status, military status, disability, and national origin, in addition to the traditional Civil Rights protections of race, color, religion, gender, and age. Due to Inchausti, the Diversity Office investigates complaints of alleged discrimination concerning employment, public accommodations, and housing.
In November 2021, the city added CROWN Act hairstyle protections to their Anti-Discrimination Ordinance. Meaning: employers, public accommodations, and housing providers may not discriminate against someone based on their hair texture, type, or style if “historically associated” with race.
Following her creation of the Anti-Discrimination Ordinance, the city promoted Inchausti to the Strategic Management and Diversity Director.
While serving in that directorship role, Inchausti convinced the city in March 2020 to engage in wastewater testing for the presence of COVID-19. The idea came from Inchausti’s launch of a similar testing program for opioids that began in 2018. Officials used wastewater testing to track COVID-19 hotspots and issue quarantines.
Although datasets weren’t available until 5 to 7 days after the purported carrier flushes their toilet, Tempe relied on the wastewater data to isolate communities — consequently targeting populations regardless of whether they were symptomatic or not. The city relied on over a million dollars in taxpayer funding to run the program in partnership with Arizona State University (ASU).
Inchausti was responsible for quarantining Tempe residents based on wastewater results despite the city admitting that wastewater doesn’t indicate infection, with some residents moved out of their homes and into local motels to quarantine. In a November 2020 interview with the Washington Examiner, Inchausti said she envisioned wastewater testing as a means of preemptive, forced quarantine for future pandemics.
“I think this is a game changer for public health,” said Inchausti. “I think this is how cities should be managed. The power in this is knowing where the virus is before people are showing symptoms or being tested. So, the asymptomatic is where we need to focus.”
Also in 2020, following the summer of Black Lives Matter riots prompted by the death of George Floyd, Tempe sought to “modernize” its practice of policing. In a webinar event last summer, Inchausti and Wydale Holmes, an interim director of the Innovation and Strategic Management Office, unveiled alternative law enforcement structures.
Tempe proposed an alternative, equity-focused 911 emergency response system to reduce reliance on police. Part of the alternative system includes diverting 911 calls to unarmed social services personnel responsible for mental illness and drug-related calls.
They’ve also begun deploying civilians to respond to scenes concerning vehicle accidents, non-violent animal calls, property crimes where the suspect isn’t present, forgery, theft reports, online reports, parking violations, crime prevention education, community conflict mediations, homeless assistance, drug usage, code enforcement, animal complaints, and city park nuisances.
As part of the police reform, Tempe divested funding from police into social services.
Inchausti’s department also led on the city’s “Right to Breathe” initiative, also prompted by Floyd’s death. The city’s report on the initiative euphemized the riots as “local Tempe events.” Proposals in the report focused on disparate, favorable treatment for minority communities justified as equity work, such as offering those communities exclusive financial benefits, work opportunities, internships, and trainings.
Under Inchausti, the city also achieved recognition and partnership with “What Works Cities” — an initiative funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and led by Results For America. The former organization was created by Democratic billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The latter organization was co-founded by two former Obama administration officials: David Medina, formerly the deputy chief of staff for First Lady Michelle Obama as well as Democratic National Convention Committee deputy CEO, an AFL-CIO union legislative representative, Democratic National Committee policy director; and Michele Jolin, senior fellow for American Progress and formerly the Obama White House’s senior advisor for social innovation, as well as a member of Obama’s presidential transition team where she created the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation and their social innovation policy agenda.
In their hiring of Inchausti, the city of Tempe lauded her as the first female to take over the position of city manager.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
