What is the Safest Suburb of Nashville?

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  • 2 sections
  • 1 table
  • 3 sources cited

There is no official ranking of Nashville’s safest suburb, and private “safest suburb” lists use different formulas and different years, so the name at the top changes with the source. The reliable way to answer it for yourself is to compare the suburbs you are considering with the same data: the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s crime statistics, reported by each local police agency. That matters because the suburbs are separate cities with their own police. Brentwood, for example, is a city in Williamson County with its own police department (Brentwood Police Department), and Belle Meade, a small city inside Davidson County, also runs its own department (Wikipedia).

Suburbs to Compare

Place What it is Distance
Brentwood a separate city in Williamson County, incorporated in 1969 12.8 miles by road from Lower Broadway (OSRM, October 2026)
Franklin the Williamson County seat 21.1 miles by road to downtown Franklin (OSRM, October 2026)
Nolensville a town in Williamson County, incorporated in 1996 16.0 miles by road (OSRM, October 2026)
Belle Meade a city of 2,901 people (2020 census) inside Davidson County, with its own police department on the west side of Nashville (Wikipedia)

Profiles of each are in what Brentwood is, what Franklin is, and what Nolensville is.

How to Compare Them

  1. Use one source for every place. The TBI’s Tennessee Crime Online Statistics site reports offenses by agency. The TBI notes that its online reports draw on live data that agencies update at least monthly, so they will not match the annual Crime in Tennessee publication.
  2. Compare rates, not counts. Brentwood, with about 45,300 people, will log more incidents than Nolensville, with about 15,800 (Census Bureau estimates for July 1, 2025), even at the same rate; divide by population.
  3. Separate violent crime from property crime. Car break-ins and thefts are a different risk from assaults.
  4. Check the same years for every place, and look at more than one year.
  5. Look at the streets you would use, not only the city total; a retail corridor and a cul-de-sac in the same city can differ.

Checking a specific neighborhood inside Nashville itself is covered in which Nashville neighborhood is safest.

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