(MONEY Magazine) – Ask most Americans where burglary is the greatest threat and they'll name New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. And it's true: thanks to their huge populations, those cities have the largest numbers of break-ins (New York City alone had 77,309 of them last year). But that doesn't tell you anything about burglary rates -- meaning your chances of getting hit. When we combined Federal Bureau of Investigation and Census Bureau statistics to compute burglary rates in the 50 most populous cities, those megalopolises faded to the bottom third of the list. What took their place was a series of mostly sunbelt cities (Texas alone claimed four spots in the top 10) where burgeoning populations and proximity to the drug trade make a dangerous mix. ''Most of these places are growing rapidly and have lots of young, unemployed men moving into neighborhoods that lack the social stability of slower-growing cities,'' says University of Texas criminologist Mark Warr. ''If they can't find work, then burglary can become an attractive option.'' Take Atlanta, for example, which had 61.0 reported burglaries per 1,000 households last year to nose out Fort Worth (60.7) for the top spot. Atlanta's metropolitan area population is expanding over three times faster than the national average, and unemployment in the city averaged 7.2% last year -- or 1.7 percentage points higher than the 5.5% national rate. Drugs are a factor too, according to Sgt. Charles Hornbuckle of the Atlanta police burglary squad. ''Most burglars are crackheads in need of a quick fix,'' says Hornbuckle, who notes that the number of cocaine- and heroin-related arrests jumped by 27% from 1989 to 1990. At the other end of the spectrum, San Francisco reported the lowest rate, with only one break-in for every 71 households, down 27% since '85. Mayor Art Agnos gives credit to Police Chief Willis Casey's decision to boost the number of officers on foot patrol and also cites the city's strong neighborhood watch programs. Says Agnos: ''Those two factors combined help make San Francisco user-unfriendly for burglars.''

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