These Major LatAm Cities are Now Safer than Some US Cities
Miami is less safe than Mexico City, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires by homicide rates per 100K.
One would have thought that Miami, the US capital of the Latin world, would be less dangerous than most of LatAm's major cities. However, when compared by the most common measure for how safe a city is — homicides per 100K people, Miami actually ranks worse than Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Santiago, and Mexico City. In fact, contrary to public perception, most LatAm big cities are significantly safer than many US metropolitan areas.
Elsewhere, Mexico undoubtedly has a crime problem — five of the ten most dangerous cities this year are in our country. But Mexico City, which often has a bad reputation in terms of crime, has been dropping its homicide rate since 2018. This downward trend, combined with Mexico's closeness to the USA, the city's fantastic dining scene (it has 2 of the world's top 10 restaurants according to World's 50 Best), and its reasonable cost of living, have all made CDMX one of the hot cities of the moment.
As mentioned last week, digital nomads are flocking to Mexico City, ranked 7th globally for remote work. And it has become a tech and entrepreneurship powerhouse — in the past two years, six unicorns have emerged from the city.
The tech capital of Latin America is, undoubtedly, São Paulo. 38% of the region's current unicorns, and the most notable fintech company, Nubank, were founded there. Becoming a city as safe as Boston, surely played no small part in such an undertaking. But São Paulo used to have a 10x greater murder rate in the early 2000s; what happened? The most likely explanations, according to the World Economic Forum, are the city's police reform and strict controls on firearms.
Of course, progress comes with a cost and some deterrents. Rents have been steadily climbing, and gentrification is taking place. However, for Mexico, the benefits outweigh the costs: the country is seeing a record level of Foreign Direct Investment and US temporary residents so far this year. As the saying goes, "mi casa es tu casa"—you are welcome in our home.