There is something to be said for small town life. One of the reasons so many of us choose to live in small towns is the feeling of safety that a small town atmosphere provides. While it's fun to go to the bigger cities, it's even nicer to raise kids and be a part of a place where peace of mind is at its greatest.

The St. Mary Parish town of Patterson was recently named as Louisiana's Safest City in a survey published by Value Penguin. Other communities rounding out the top 5 were Harahan, St. Gabriel, Mandeville, and Minden.

Associate Editor of the Value Penguin report Andrew Pentis told the Louisiana Radio Network he's not really surprised that the smaller communities ranked higher on the list than some of the larger towns.

Typically what we find with these studies is that larger cities, because of their size, have a harder time maintaining safety.

If you are wondering how some of the larger cities fared in the survey, Gretna, Zachary, Kenner, Slidell, and Houma made up the top five in that category.

The criterion for the survey included several factors. Crime was naturally a big concern. But the kind of crime also came into play in how each community was adjudicated.

We do weight the violent crime four times as much as property crime, and that’s because violent crime can ruin your day in a bigger way than maybe a property crime can.

Patterson was also chosen as Louisiana's safest city in last year's Value Penguin survey. In fact, several communities that were on last year's list made this years top 5 as well.

Patterson and Harahan were one and two in 2015, as they were in 2016. The same goes for Mandeville, it was fourth in both years.

Value Penguin is a personal finance website that conducts in-depth research and analysis on a variety of topics from insurance, to credit cards, to everyday spending.

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