Chicago's 10 Safest Neighborhoods Ranked by Crime Score

Chicago's reputation for crime obscures meaningful variation across its 77 community areas. Using FBI incident data mapped to ZIP codes, NeighborScore has ranked Chicago's safest neighborhoods by crime score — a 0–100 index where higher means fewer incidents relative to the national baseline.

Lincoln Park (60614) leads with a 76/100 crime score, followed closely by Lakeview (60657) at 74/100 and Lincoln Square (60625) at 72/100. The North Shore corridor — from Edgewater down through Andersonville — consistently outperforms city averages.

At the other end, neighborhoods like Englewood (60621) and Austin (60644) score below 20/100, reflecting violent incident rates 6–8x above the national median. The city's north-south crime gradient is among the sharpest in any major US metro.

For home buyers, the crime score gap between Lincoln Park and South Shore translates to roughly $400K in median home price — a 65% premium that directly prices in perceived safety. Whether that premium is justified depends on whether you weight crime data or school quality more heavily in your search.