When it comes to public transportation in the US and Canada, any accurate statistics break NYC off from every other area. It's just an extreme outlier. That said, there are plenty of places where you can live without a car, but you're going to be sacrificing.
Off the top of my head I think the best we've got is New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philly for the big cities, and for small cities you can either pick something on the edges of one of the big cities which kinda ride the coattails of the big cities transit or other isolated small towns that never redeveloped for cars, though those seem few and far between.
Good news! NYC isn't too bad for murder all things considered. It has a murder rate of 3.39 per 100k, compared to St Louis' 66.07 per 100k it barely even registers!