Least-Safe Cities: Are They Really What You Think?

However, some places are definitely much safer than others, and it's important to watch out for certain things depending on where you live.

According to a survey regarding America's 50 biggest metro areas, residents of the biggest metro areas feel scarcely less secure than the national average as a whole.

The variation showed a 25 percent difference between the least and most secure feelings among various city dwellers.

Yet, for city's ranked as notably dangerous areas, including Detroit and St. Louis, statistics show that residents aren't necessarily nervous about walking alone at night in these areas. In fact, nearly three-quarters of St. Louis-area residents feel safe doing so, which puts that metro in the top 15 of the safest-feeling cities. By contrast, people in the Silicon Valley, Dallas and San Diego areas are considerably warier.

The most secure of all big-metro dwellers live in the Twin Cities: An impressive 80 percent of Minneapolis-area residents feel safe walking at night -- though we suppose maybe Gallup should have asked them about bicycling instead. Bike riders on the city's Midtown Greenway have recently reported a spate of attacks, including one Molotov cocktail hurled at a cyclist, according to the Atlantic Cities.

And as far as the old song goes: Maybe it's true that nobody walks in L.A. -- but more than two-thirds say that if they did, they'd feel perfectly comfortable walkin' in L.A. at night.