Darby, PA Crime Map

Darby, PA Safety Overview: What the Data Actually Shows

With a population of 10,711 and an overall crime grade of D, Darby, PA presents a mixed but navigable safety picture. Across the three neighborhoods analyzed in our crime map, 67% earned a B grade or better, while 33% fell into the higher-crime D range. No neighborhood scored an F, and none reached an A — a distribution that tells a nuanced story about a dense, working-class borough where safety conditions vary meaningfully by location.

Neighborhood-by-Neighborhood Breakdown

Collingdale stands out as the safest area in the Darby region, earning a solid B grade. With a median household income of $65,543 and a population of nearly 9,000, it consistently outperforms the borough average. The Darby neighborhood itself earns a B-, supported by a median income of $51,057 — a step down from Collingdale but still within the safer half of the grading scale. Colwyn, by contrast, is the area that pulls the overall numbers down. It carries a D+ grade despite having the highest median income of the three at $67,413, suggesting that income alone does not determine neighborhood safety. Colwyn's small population of just 2,570 means that even a modest number of incidents can significantly affect its per-capita crime rate.

Understanding the Grade Distribution

Of the three neighborhoods analyzed, two — Collingdale and Darby — earned B-range grades, accounting for roughly 67% of the areas studied. Colwyn's D+ accounts for the remaining 33%. There are no C-grade neighborhoods in this dataset, which means the safety landscape here is somewhat polarized: most areas are doing reasonably well, but the outlier pulls hard in the other direction. For a borough with a poverty rate of 25.5% and an unemployment rate of 15.2%, the fact that two-thirds of neighborhoods hold B grades is a meaningful data point worth noting.

Property Crime vs. Violent Crime in Darby

In dense boroughs like Darby — where population density reaches 4,910 residents per square mile and median home values sit at just $83,719 — property crime tends to be the dominant concern. Theft, vehicle break-ins, and burglary typically track closely with economic stress indicators, and Darby's combination of high unemployment and a poverty rate above one in four residents creates conditions where property crime rates are elevated. Violent crime, while present, tends to be more concentrated in lower-graded areas like Colwyn rather than spread evenly across the borough. Residents in B-grade areas like Collingdale and the Darby neighborhood itself are statistically more insulated from violent incidents, though no area is entirely without risk.

How the Crime Map Supports Smarter Decisions

Darby's interactive crime map is a practical tool for several specific audiences. Home buyers evaluating the $83,719 median home value will want to cross-reference property listings against neighborhood grades before committing — the difference between Collingdale's B and Colwyn's D+ is significant over a multi-year horizon. Renters comparing the $1,107 median rent across different parts of the borough can use the map to weigh cost against safety trade-offs. Commuters passing through the area on foot or by transit can identify which corridors carry higher incident concentrations and adjust their routes accordingly. The map also gives long-term residents a data-backed way to track whether conditions in their specific neighborhood are improving or declining over time — moving beyond anecdote and into verifiable trend analysis.

The Bottom Line on Darby Safety

Darby's D overall crime grade reflects real economic pressures, but the neighborhood-level data complicates that headline number. Two out of three analyzed areas are genuinely safer than the borough-wide grade implies. Understanding which neighborhoods those are — and why Colwyn diverges from them despite its higher median income — is exactly the kind of insight a well-built crime map is designed to deliver.