This Is The Worst City For Singles

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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This Is The Worst City For Singles

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About 50% of adult Americans are single. That is up from just over 20% in 1950. Why? People don’t marry so young. One expert, Eric Klinenberg, sociology professor at New York University and author of “Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone”, writes more people are looking for soul mates, which presumably takes a long time, and may never produce a partner. Ironically he adds, there are more and more ways for people to meet one another through processes that include dating sites. Apparently, a broader net does not create more partners.

Cinch Home Services recently released a study about the best and worst cities to be single. According to a Realtor.com analysis of the study:

To come up with its findings, Cinch looked at the 100 largest cities. They were ranked by a combination of the percentage of the population that is single; average wages after taxes; median rent for a one-bedroom apartment; and the number and ratings of recreational activities.

A look at the study shows that according to the “Cinch Singles Index”, their research can pick the best and worst cities for singles. The company considered data from the Census, Yelp, and rent measuring firm Nuemo.

The “Cinch Singles Index” is actually several indices. They include the worst place to be single by age, the cities worst for people who have broken up with partners, the worst cities for places for singles to meet one another, and the worst cities for singles financially. It also broke down the worst cities for single men and single women

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Among the 100 cities, the worst on the list is Chesapeake, Virginia. It sits on the Atlantic Ocean, next to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. It is the second-most populous city in Virginia. The city is growing rapidly, up 10% in the last decade. Fifty-eight percent of the population is White, and another 30% Black. The median value of an occupied house is $273,700, which is below the national average. Median income, at $78,640, is about $10,000 above the national figure. And, a relatively small 8.3% of the population lives in poverty.

While research may tell single people where they may want to live or not live, the problem with the study is that it does not do enough to survey the residents of each city to see whether they are happy–or not.

Click here to read America’s Worst Cities for Singles

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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