District safety · Kansas City · data through October 2026
How safe is Greater Downtown, Kansas City?
Greater Downtown, Kansas City covers 19 neighborhoods in SafeRoute's Kansas City index. Its median safety index is 21/100 — below the citywide median of 55, so more is reported around a typical neighborhood here than across Kansas City. West Bottoms scores highest at 89/100; CBD Downtown lowest at 9/100.
These figures describe reported crime around each neighborhood's center — they are informational, not a judgment of any community. 1 of 19 neighborhoods here rates low risk, 1 moderate, 5 elevated and 12 high risk.
Every neighborhood in Greater Downtown, safest first
| Neighborhood | Index | Band | Incidents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 West Bottoms | 89/100 | Low risk | 28 |
| 2 Harlem | 62/100 | Moderate | 161 |
| 3 Columbus Park Industrial | 43/100 | Elevated | 349 |
| 4 Westside South | 43/100 | Elevated | 321 |
| 5 Westside North | 27/100 | Elevated | 697 |
| 6 Union Hill | 26/100 | Elevated | 781 |
| 7 West of Vine | 25/100 | Elevated | 776 |
| 8 Columbus Park | 22/100 | High risk | 879 |
| 9 Crown Center | 22/100 | High risk | 880 |
| 10 River Market | 21/100 | High risk | 998 |
| 11 Beacon Hills | 20/100 | High risk | 900 |
| 12 Mount Hope | 20/100 | High risk | 980 |
| 13 Longfellow | 18/100 | High risk | 1,128 |
| 14 Paseo West | 18/100 | High risk | 1,108 |
| 15 Parkview | 17/100 | High risk | 1,164 |
| 16 Hospital Hill | 16/100 | High risk | 1,292 |
| 17 Quality Hill | 13/100 | High risk | 1,726 |
| 18 Crossroads | 12/100 | High risk | 1,830 |
| 19 CBD Downtown | 9/100 | High risk | 2,505 |
Walking in Greater Downtown, Kansas City at night?
SafeRoute scores every walking route against the same official crime data on this page — and shows how much of each route runs on lit streets. Compare the routes and share your walk. Free, no account.
Get SafeRoute on the App StoreHow Greater Downtown compares across Kansas City
| Districts (safest first) | Median index | Neighborhoods |
|---|---|---|
| Little Blue Valley | 84/100 | 9 |
| Gashland/ | 81/100 | 8 |
| Riverfront Industrial | 78/100 | 8 |
| Line Creek | 74/100 | 17 |
| Blue Ridge | 71/100 | 19 |
| Briarcliff/ | 67/100 | 24 |
| Red Bridge | 67/100 | 22 |
| Country Club/ | 66/100 | 23 |
| Hickman Mills | 57/100 | 14 |
| Swope | 32/100 | 18 |
| Truman Plaza | 27/100 | 14 |
| Midtown/ | 25/100 | 24 |
| Heart of the City | 24/100 | 21 |
| Greater Downtown (this page) | 21/100 | 19 |
Is Kansas City safe at night? See which neighborhoods see the most reported crime after dark →
Common questions
What is the safest neighborhood in Greater Downtown, Kansas City?
West Bottoms has the highest SafeRoute safety index in Greater Downtown, Kansas City, at 89/100 (low risk), from 28 reported incidents within 1 km of its center. Harlem (62/100) and Columbus Park Industrial (43/100) follow.
Which neighborhood in Greater Downtown, Kansas City has the most reported crime?
CBD Downtown has the lowest index in Greater Downtown, Kansas City, at 9/100, with 2,505 reported incidents within 1 km of its center. A low score means more is reported around that center, which busy commercial and transport areas produce simply by having more people in them — it is not a measure of how dangerous a resident's street is.
Is Greater Downtown, Kansas City safe?
Across its 19 neighborhoods the median SafeRoute safety index is 21/100, against 55 across Kansas City. 1 rates low risk, 1 moderate, 5 elevated and 12 high risk. These describe reported crime only and vary widely within the district — check the individual neighborhood rather than reading one number for the whole of it.
How is the SafeRoute safety index calculated?
SafeRoute weights each incident reported to the Kansas City Police Department by severity (violence weighs more than shoplifting), sums the last available period within 1 km of the neighborhood center, and normalizes against citywide crime rates onto a 0–100 scale — higher is safer. It describes reported crime only; it is not a guarantee of safety. The figure shown for Greater Downtown, Kansas City is the median of its 19 neighborhoods — the district is not measured separately.
Methodology
Each incident reported to the Kansas City Police Department is weighted by severity — violence counts for more than shoplifting. For every neighborhood we sum weighted incidents within 1 km of its center, and normalize against citywide rates onto a 0–100 index, higher = safer. Boundaries are the city's own 246 neighborhoods, grouped by the 18 Area Plans the city itself plans against. Two are not scored: KCI & 2nd Creek, which is the airport, and Longview, which wraps Longview Lake and carries almost no recorded incidents anywhere inside it — a page there could only have said “0 incidents, 100/100”, which is missing data dressed as proven safety. Kansas City covers a lot of ground, and several neighborhoods along the Missouri and Blue river bottoms are industrial or largely undeveloped; those pages say so rather than letting an empty count read as a quiet street. Time-of-day charts use KCPD incident timestamps, severity-weighted. Pages regenerate as new data is published.
The index compares neighborhoods within Kansas City. It is not comparable between cities: each police force publishes a different set of offences over a different period — Kansas City's figures cannot be read against another city's on the same 0–100 scale.