San Antonio vs Jacksonville: which should you move to?

On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in San Antonio went from 11,219 in 2021 to a peak of 13,105 in 2022, then 10,440 in 2023, 9,173 in 2024 and 8,241 in 2025, a 10% drop in the last year and 37% below the peak, and property offenses from 61,559 to 74,787 and a peak of 80,789 in 2023, then 70,657 and 60,693, 25% below the peak. Motor vehicle theft drove most of that swing: 8,912 in 2021, 19,090 in 2023 and 9,527 in 2025, half the peak. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 9% (6,037 to 5,506), robberies down 17% (1,656 to 1,380), rapes down 8% (1,354 to 1,249) and murders down 16% (126 to 106). SAPD's own January-to-November comparison points the same way: all reported crime down 13% (143,529 to 124,314), crimes against property down 18.1%, motor vehicle theft down 26.5% and robberies down 16.4%, while crimes against society rose 15.4%, which the chief put down to more drug arrests. A University of Texas at San Antonio evaluation of the city's Violent Crime Reduction Plan found violent street crime fell 22% in treated hot spots in 2024 against 9.6% citywide (San Antonio Report). The 2025 CDE counts were read on 30 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.

What the rates cover: Computed: 8,241 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the San Antonio Police Department (ORI TXSPD0000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,548,422 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,549,306 the rate is also 532. No SAPD total on this definition was found in anything fetched. Its year-end report to the City Council's Public Safety Committee in December 2025 counted NIBRS crimes against persons, which include simple assaults, and put them at 28,361 for January through November 2025, down 9% from 31,179 in the same months of 2024 (KSAT).

Homicides: 106 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 126 in 2024, about 6.8 per 100,000 on the city population. SAPD's own count for January through November 2025 was 99 against 119 in the same months of 2024, a drop of nearly 17% (KSAT); a full-year SAPD figure was not found in anything fetched. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 233, in 2022, a year whose count includes the 53 migrants found dead in a tractor-trailer on the Southwest Side (San Antonio Report).

On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Jacksonville went from 6,496 in 2021 to 6,141 in 2022 and 6,513 in 2023, then fell to 5,680 in 2024 and 5,231 in 2025, 8% lower than in 2024 and 19% lower than in 2021. Property offenses rose from 23,968 in 2021 to a peak of 26,443 in 2024 and fell 17% in 2025 to 21,920. Motor vehicle theft drove the swing: 2,035 in 2021, 3,461 in 2024 and 2,036 in 2025, down 41% in the last year. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 7% (4,533 to 4,236), robberies down 16% (639 to 539), rapes down 16% (445 to 376), burglaries down 22% and larcenies down 12%, while murders rose from 63 to 80, the one violent measure that went up. The sheriff's office cleared 55% of 2025's murders against 73% of 2024's, as Action News Jax reported from JSO records. The 2025 CDE counts were read on 1 October 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.

What the rates cover: Computed: 5,231 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (ORI FL0160000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,017,689 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,008,920 the rate is 518. The sheriff's office, formed when the city and county police merged in 1968, is responsible for law enforcement in the county; Jacksonville Beach has its own department. That is higher than Miami (359), Tampa (375.5) and Fort Worth (375), close to Boston (507) and below San Antonio (532), Dallas (577) and Houston (890).

Homicides: 80 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 63 in 2024, about 7.9 per 100,000 on the city population. The sheriff's office's own counts differ slightly by date and definition: Action News Jax, reading JSO records, reported 76 murders in 2025 against 63 in 2024, and News4JAX reported 79 murder cases in 2025 within more than 100 homicides of all kinds, including 11 fatal police shootings. The 2024 figure was the low point: News4JAX's count of 82 homicides of all kinds that year was the lowest in the 19 years it has kept one. The CDE series is 107 in 2021, 132 in 2022, 128 in 2023, 63 in 2024 and 80 in 2025.

BLS counted 1,191,700 nonfarm jobs in the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 6,100 or 0.5% on the year. Professional and business services grew fastest (+4.8%, to 162,400), then construction (+2.9%) and trade, transportation and utilities (+2.8%), while information (-7.7%), government (-3.1%, to 181,800) and private education and health services (-2.0%, to 180,300) shrank; federal government employment fell 6.7%, from 38,700 to 36,100. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 216,300 jobs. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS48417000000000001) was 1,195,900 in August 2026, 0.8% above August 2025. BLS's federal line is far smaller than the base itself: the Texas Comptroller counts 74,713 direct employees at Joint Base San Antonio in 2025, 33,256 of them active-duty military, and estimates the base supported 223,349 Texas jobs and $33.9 billion of the state's GDP ($53.5 billion of output). Greater SATX, the regional economic development group, calls it the largest joint base in the US military. UT San Antonio, formed when UTSA and UT Health San Antonio merged in September 2025, calls health care and biosciences, a $44.1 billion sector, the city's largest industry. H-E-B, USAA, Valero Energy and iHeartMedia are all headquartered in the city.

Main sectors: Military and federal installations: Joint Base San Antonio (Fort Sam Houston with Brooke Army Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base with the Air Force's basic military training and the 16th Air Force, and Randolph Air Force Base with the Air Education and Training Command), Health care and biosciences (the South Texas Medical Center, University Health, UT Health San Antonio and UT San Antonio, Methodist Hospital, the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital), Tourism and hospitality (Visit San Antonio counts $23.4 billion of economic impact and more than 150,000 jobs in 2024), Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector by payroll jobs (H-E-B, headquartered in the city; CPS Energy; San Antonio International Airport's cargo), Financial services, energy and media headquarters (USAA, Valero Energy, iHeartMedia).

Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax. On 17 September 2026 the City Council voted 7 to 4, with Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones in the minority, to raise the city's own rate for the first time since 1992, as part of a plan to close a $158 million deficit over two years that also includes cuts, fee increases and a second rate increase planned for fiscal 2028. The fiscal 2027 rate is 56.288 cents per $100 of taxable value: 35.138 cents for maintenance and operations, two cents more than before, and 21.150 cents for debt service. The two outlets that gave a figure for the average homestead disagree: KSAT put it at about $49 more a year on a taxable value of $231,356, and the San Antonio Report at $35.43 on a $234,000 home. Senior and disabled homeowners with a tax freeze, about 47% of the city's homesteads, are unaffected (KSAT). The county, school district, University Health, San Antonio River Authority, Alamo Colleges and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.

BLS counted 803,800 nonfarm jobs in the Jacksonville MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up only 500 on the year, almost flat. Private education and health services grew fastest (+3.3%, to 139,800) and professional and business services next (+2.0%, to 120,100), while financial activities lost 4,400 jobs (-6.1%, to 67,800), finance and insurance alone 3,000, and information fell 8.2% to 13,400. Government shrank 2.5% to 77,900, almost all of it federal (-8.4%, from 20,300 to 18,600); BLS's payroll count does not include active-duty sailors. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 170,000 jobs, and leisure and hospitality held at 93,900. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS12272600000000001) was 806,600 in August 2026, 0.4% above August 2025. JAXPORT moved 1,388,841 TEUs of containers in fiscal 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025), up 4% on the year, 506,237 vehicles and 10.2 million tons of cargo, and says its cargo supports more than 258,800 jobs and $44 billion of annual economic impact in the region and state; a $250 million modernization of Blount Island's container and auto terminals was completed in 2025. The state's 2024 defense summary, on 2022 figures, puts defense spending in Duval County at $6.5 billion and its total impact at $9.1 billion, 68,060 jobs and 10.4% of the county's economy.

Main sectors: Port, rail and logistics: JAXPORT, Florida's No. 1 container port by volume (nearly 1.39 million TEUs and 506,237 vehicles in fiscal 2025), CSX and the Florida East Coast Railway, both headquartered in the city, and the shipping lines to Puerto Rico (Crowley, TOTE Maritime, Trailer Bridge), The Navy: Naval Air Station Jacksonville, the largest installation in Navy Region Southeast, Naval Station Mayport, home of the Fourth Fleet and 21 ships, and Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island; defense spending has a $9.1 billion total economic impact in Duval County, Finance, insurance and financial technology (FIS and Fidelity National Financial, both headquartered in the city, Florida Blue, and Deutsche Bank's second-largest US operation), a sector now shrinking, Health care (Mayo Clinic Florida, Baptist Health and Wolfson Children's Hospital, UF Health Jacksonville, St. Vincent's), the metro's fastest-growing large sector, Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector by payroll jobs (170,000 in August 2026).

Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Florida's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 0.78%, and a homestead exemption takes as much as $50,000 off a permanent residence's taxable value, with the Save Our Homes limit on how fast its assessment can rise (Florida Department of Revenue). On 22 September 2026 the City Council adopted a $2 billion budget for fiscal 2027, 18 to 1, and kept the consolidated government's rate at 11.1919 mills, about $11.19 per $1,000 of taxable value, on a 16 to 3 vote; The four towns that kept their own governments pay a different city rate (7.9012 mills at the Beaches, 9.4208 in Baldwin). Council and mayor held the rate rather than cut it because of Amendment 3, the homestead property tax cut on Florida's 3 November 2026 ballot, which the city expects would open a revenue shortfall of about $300 million by 2028 if it passes, and tied some spending to its outcome (Jacksonville Today). School board and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.

Health care

Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF, August 2026). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of San Antonio's rate was 18.0% (268,665 of 1,496,335), Bexar County's 15.8% and the metro's 14.5%. The South Texas Medical Center on the Northwest Side covers more than 900 acres around the medical school that opened there in 1968 and holds the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Medical Center and a dozen other hospitals; a UTSA study cited by the San Antonio Report in 2022 put its annual economic effect on the region at $24.5 billion. University Health, the Bexar County Hospital District, runs University Hospital there, a 716-bed teaching hospital and a Level I trauma center for adults and children, and the 300-bed Women's & Children's Hospital that opened on the same campus in 2023; it plans to open two community hospitals elsewhere in the county in 2027. Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston has about 8,500 staff. UT Health San Antonio, the clinical arm of UT San Antonio, counts more than 2.5 million patient visits a year. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.

Education

No single school district covers the city. Northside ISD, the largest in the San Antonio area with about 98,000 students, faced a $35 million deficit in March 2026, down from nearly $108 million, and its superintendent said closures were possible but not expected for 2026-27 (KSAT). North East ISD lost about 2,000 students in 2025-26, now serves about 55,000, closed three campuses the year before and will accept students from anywhere in the region from 2026-27 (San Antonio Report). San Antonio ISD has closed 25 schools in the last decade and in March 2026 voted to close Rhodes Middle School and hand three other campuses to a charter operator, Third Future Schools, citing falling enrollment and state accountability ratings. Districts say they cannot yet tell how many students the state's new education savings accounts, which help pay private school tuition from 2026-27, will draw away. UT San Antonio, formed on 2 September 2025 when UTSA merged with UT Health San Antonio, has about 40,000 students and 17,000 employees and calls itself the third-largest public research university in Texas by research spending, and the Alamo Colleges District runs five community colleges.

Living there

San Antonio is the second city of Texas and the seventh-largest in the country, and unlike Dallas it is still growing inside its own limits: it added 14,359 residents in 2024-25, the third-largest gain of any US city, and 8.0% since 2020. The military has shaped it for three centuries, and Joint Base San Antonio, with 74,713 direct employees, sits beside the South Texas Medical Center and a tourism trade Visit San Antonio values at $23.4 billion as the pillars of the economy. Household income is lower than in Dallas or Austin, and 18.0% of residents have no health insurance. VIA runs buses only, 2.4% of workers take them and 68.2% drive alone, and the Green Line along San Pedro Avenue, the city's first rapid transit line, is due in April 2028. Summers are long and dry rather than humid, with 122 days a year at 90F or above and 75 at 100F in 2023, and water is the killer: the creeks rise within minutes, and a single night of rain on 12 June 2025 drowned 13 people. The open questions are fiscal and civic: the council raised the city's property tax rate for the first time since 1992 on a 7 to 4 vote the mayor opposed, with a second increase planned, and the big school districts are shrinking, closing campuses and competing for each other's students as the state's education savings accounts begin.

Health care

Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Florida is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act; an organizing committee relaunched a ballot initiative to expand it in February 2026 (KFF). Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024 (2,509,782 of 23,038,464), the sixth-highest of any state, against 8.2% nationally, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates; the City of Jacksonville's was 10.1% (99,720 of 990,245), Duval County's 9.9% and the metro's 8.2%. UF Health Jacksonville, the University of Florida's academic hospital downtown with 695 beds and another 216 at UF Health North, is home to North Florida's Level I trauma center and carries the city's safety-net care: the fiscal 2027 city budget carries $56 million for its indigent care (Jacksonville Today). Mayo Clinic's Florida campus on the Southside, Mayo's first outside Rochester, opened in 1986 and has a hospital Wikipedia gives 304 beds, with an expansion to 428 announced for 2026. Baptist Health runs Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and, beside it on the downtown riverfront, the 281-bed Wolfson Children's Hospital, the region's only Level I pediatric trauma center verified by the American College of Surgeons. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.

Education

Duval County Public Schools, whose boundaries match the county's, has fallen below 100,000 students this fall for the first time in modern history, a 16% decline since 2015, when it had more than 115,000, as charter schools, homeschooling and state scholarships for private tuition grew (Action News Jax, 30 September 2026). It cut 115 teaching positions in September 2025 after a 1.9% drop in enrollment, closed several elementary schools that summer under its 2024 master facilities plan, and is consolidating four more in 2026-27, with two others delayed to 2027-28 and 2028-29. The University of North Florida, a public R2 research university founded in 1965 on the Southside, enrolled 16,575 students in 2024 (Florida Board of Governors). Jacksonville University, private, in Arlington, enrolled 4,247 in fall 2024 and has what Wikipedia calls the second-largest Naval ROTC program in the country. Florida State College at Jacksonville, the state college with campuses across the city, enrolled 23,556 students in 2024-25 (IPEDS, as compiled by UnivStats), 70% of them part time. Edward Waters University, founded in 1866, is the state's oldest historically Black college, and the city has committed $130 million to a new University of Florida graduate campus (Jacksonville Today).

Living there

Jacksonville is the largest city by land area in the contiguous United States, 747 square miles, because in 1968 it consolidated with Duval County and took in almost all of it; it is Florida's largest city by a wide margin and the eleventh-largest in the country, yet its metro is the smallest of the four Florida metros this site compares, and half the metro's growth since 2020 has been in St. Johns and Nassau counties rather than the city. The St. Johns River runs north through the middle of it to the Atlantic, and the river is both the economy and the risk: JAXPORT, Florida's busiest container port, and the Navy's bases at NAS Jacksonville and Mayport line it, and Irma in 2017 pushed it to its highest recorded level downtown. It is the coolest of the Florida cities here after Tallahassee, with real if brief winters, and hurricanes rarely hit it directly. It is built for the car: 70.9% of workers drive alone and 0.8% take transit, and the transit agency is cutting service, halting the Skyway and ending its autonomous shuttle in a budget crisis. Violent crime, at 514 per 100,000 on the FBI's counts, is higher than in Miami or Tampa. Household income, at $72,389, sits in the middle of the Florida cities, and Florida takes no income tax. The open questions are the transit agency's finances, a shrinking school district, the November 2026 homestead tax vote the city has budgeted against, and whether finance jobs, down 6.1% in a year, keep leaving.