District safety · Philadelphia · data through September 2026

How safe is Central Philadelphia?

Central Philadelphia covers 19 neighborhoods in SafeRoute's Philadelphia index. Its median safety index is 44/100 — below the citywide median of 54, so more is reported around a typical neighborhood here than across Philadelphia. Queen Village scores highest at 61/100; Center City East lowest at 25/100.

These figures describe reported crime around each neighborhood's center — they are informational, not a judgment of any community. 0 of 19 neighborhoods here rate low risk, 5 moderate, 14 elevated and 0 high risk.

Every neighborhood in Central, safest first

Neighborhood	Index	Band	Incidents
1 Queen Village	61/100	Moderate	1,067
2 Fairmount	54/100	Moderate	1,350
3 Northern Liberties	54/100	Moderate	1,450
4 Fitler Square	52/100	Moderate	1,756
5 Spring Garden	50/100	Moderate	1,647
6 Society Hill	49/100	Elevated	1,735
7 Bella Vista	47/100	Elevated	1,922
8 East Poplar	47/100	Elevated	1,772
9 Graduate Hospital	46/100	Elevated	2,293
10 Old City	44/100	Elevated	2,144
11 Francisville	42/100	Elevated	2,169
12 West Poplar	42/100	Elevated	2,106
13 Callowhill	40/100	Elevated	2,496
14 Hawthorne	40/100	Elevated	2,709
15 Logan Square	39/100	Elevated	2,573
16 Rittenhouse	30/100	Elevated	3,961
17 Chinatown	29/100	Elevated	4,023
18 Washington Square West	26/100	Elevated	4,876
19 Center City East	25/100	Elevated	4,928

How Central compares across Philadelphia

Districts (safest first)	Median index	Neighborhoods
Upper Far Northeast	89/100	3
Lower South	87/100	3
Lower Northwest	85/100	10
Lower Far Northeast	84/100	14
Central Northeast	73/100	5
West Park	69/100	4
North Delaware	67/100	5
Lower Southwest	66/100	5
River Wards	63/100	6
Lower Northeast	62/100	5
Upper North	57/100	8
Upper Northwest	54/100	10
University Southwest	52/100	11
South	49/100	13
Central (this page)	44/100	19
North	44/100	11
West	42/100	9
Lower North	40/100	10

Common questions

What is the safest neighborhood in Central Philadelphia?

Queen Village has the highest SafeRoute safety index in Central Philadelphia, at 61/100 (moderate), from 1,067 reported incidents within 1 km of its center. Fairmount (54/100) and Northern Liberties (54/100) follow.

Which neighborhood in Central Philadelphia has the most reported crime?

Center City East has the lowest index in Central Philadelphia, at 25/100, with 4,928 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 Central Philadelphia safe?

Across its 19 neighborhoods the median SafeRoute safety index is 44/100, against 54 across Philadelphia. 0 rate low risk, 5 moderate, 14 elevated and 0 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 Philadelphia 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 Central Philadelphia is the median of its 19 neighborhoods — the district is not measured separately.

Methodology

Each incident reported to the Philadelphia Police Department (via OpenDataPhilly) 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 crime rates onto a 0–100 index, higher = safer. Boundaries are the 158 neighborhoods the city publishes, grouped by the 18 Planning Districts the City Planning Commission uses; seven are not scored because nobody lives in them — both halves of Fairmount Park, Wissahickon and Pennypack Parks, the two airports, and the Southwest refinery belt labelled "Industrial" — where near-zero reported crime would read as falsely "safe" rather than as empty land. Time-of-day charts use PPD dispatch timestamps, severity-weighted. Locations are published at block level for privacy. Pages regenerate as new data is published.

The index compares neighborhoods within Philadelphia. It is not comparable between cities: each police force publishes a different set of offences over a different period — Philadelphia's figures cannot be read against another city's on the same 0–100 scale.