Forbes Magazine picks top cities for singles

To determine the best city for singles, we ranked 40 of the largest U.S. metropolitan centers in six different areas: nightlife, culture, job growth, number of other singles, cost of living alone and coolness. Each metro is assigned a ranking of 1 to 40 in each category, based on quantitative data. Those ranks are then averaged to determine the final rankings. Ties are broken by readers' preferences.

Singles: The number of singles is based on the percentage of a metro's population above the age of 15 that has never been married. Data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nightlife: Nightlife is based on the number of restaurants, bars and nightclubs in each standard metropolitan area. Data provided by Citysearch.

Culture: Our cultural index is determined by the number of museums, pro sports teams, and live theater and concert venues, as well as the university population, in each metro. Data provided by Citysearch and Montreal International.

Cost of Living Alone: Our proprietary Cost of Living Alone index is determined by the average cost of a metro area's apartment rent, a Pizza Hut pizza, a movie ticket and a six-pack of Heineken. This year we factored in entry-level salary data as well. The majority of the raw data for the cost of living index was provided by Arlington, Va.-based ACCRA. Salary data provided by the New York-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

Job Growth: Job growth rankings are determined by the projected percentage of job growth over the next five years for each metro. Data provided by Washington, D.C.-based Woods & Poole Economics.

Coolness: Coolness is determined by an area's diversity and its number of creative workers (i.e., those whose jobs require creativity, such as artists, scientists, teachers and musicians). Richard Florida and Kevin Stolarick—both of Catalytix as well as George Mason University and Carnegie Mellon University, respectively—and Gary Gates of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law provided the data.
 
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  ----------------------------------- Ranks -----------------------------------
Rank City Culture Nightlife Singles Job Growth Living Cost Coolness
1 Denver-Boulder 3 11 18 9 3 6
2 Boston 1 10 6 31 16 4
3 San Francisco 8 4 5 24 24 3
4 Raleigh-Durham 10 24 11 7 6 12
5 Washington-Baltimore 2 7 8 23 28 5
6 Atlanta 15 18 17 15 2 7
7 Los Angeles 9 2 4 32 19 11
8 New York 4 1 3 40 24 7
9 Chicago 7 3 7 28 16 23
10 Seattle 19 17 19 20 19 2
11 Austin 17 37 1 2 39 1
12 Philadelphia 5 5 9 38 16 24
13 Minneapolis-St Paul 6 23 13 21 27 10
14 Phoenix 12 19 30 4 10 26
15 Sacramento 23 30 19 6 11 12
16 Detroit 11 8 15 34 14 21
17 Houston 26 6 26 16 5 25
18 Columbus 21 28 14 18 7 16
19 Portland 32 11 31 17 11 9
20 Dallas-Ft Worth 24 11 33 13 24 16
21 San Diego 28 28 9 10 30 20
22 Nashville 13 36 32 14 21 14
23 Miami 24 15 23 19 38 15
24 Salt Lake City 15 30 21 5 32 35
25 Las Vegas 39 22 38 1 11 29
26 New Orleans 22 20 2 33 36 28
27 St Louis 18 20 24 30 31 18
28 Cleveland 14 9 22 29 35 32
29 Pittsburgh 19 14 34 37 4 39
30 Cincinnati 27 27 28 27 9 34
31 Orlando 35 34 29 3 33 19
32 Milwaukee 28 26 12 35 21 31
33 Charlotte 40 35 36 12 1 32
34 Indianapolis 33 33 35 22 8 26
35 San Antonio 34 16 27 8 39 36
36 Tampa 30 25 40 11 37 30
37 Providence 31 37 16 39 28 22
38 Kansas City 35 32 37 26 14 37
39 Norfolk 38 39 25 25 34 38
40 Greensboro 37 40 39 36 21 40