If you're looking for love here, look somewhere else. A study by real estate website porch.com ranked 55 large metro areas from best to worst places to fall in love. St. Louis ranked 45th. The good news? Kansas City ranked 55th — dead last. At least we're doing better than our western neighbor.
The study also ranked midsize and small metros, for a total of 250 cities, out of which St. Louis was ranked 169th. The study also ranked all the states; Missouri was 42nd.
While no single person in St. Louis would disagree with the study, it's worth looking at how porch.com — hitherto unidentified as a source for accurate information about our love lives — determined that St. Louis is a terrible place to be single and ready to mingle.
The site mostly looked at population demographics, determining what percentage of people were single and not living with a partner. Utah has the lowest percentage of single adults in the United States. Southern states — and this may be surprising —- have the highest percentage. Roughly 40 percent of Mississippi and Louisiana's populations are single.
The study also looked at gender demographics. (This was a very heteronormative study.) The Northeast and Southeast have more women, while the Mountain West and Upper Plains have more men, resulting in smaller dating pools depending on what you're looking for.
Porch.com also looked at how much there was to do in any city so the singletons could go out and meet others and go on dates. Finally, the study looked at divorce rates in each area.
St. Louis, it turns out, doesn't have enough single men. Across the U.S., the male share of the adult single population is 44.8 percent, but in St. Louis it is only 43.2 percent. Plus, there were only 25.7 food and entertainment businesses per 10,000 people. And finally, our divorce rate is 12.5 percent, slightly higher than the 11.1 percent national average.
Overall, though, St. Louis has a sizable singles population: 34.2 percent of adults, compared to a national average of 33.2 percent.
Here are top options to move to if you're single and tired of the St. Louis dating scene:
- Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Massachusetts
- Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Hartford-East Harford-Middletown, Connecticut
- Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colorado
- New Orleans-Metairie, Louisiana
- Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin
- Rochester, New York
- New York-Newark-Jersey City
- Buffalo-Cheektowaga, New York
- Urban Honolulu, Hawaii
- San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, California
- San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, California
- Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, California
- San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
... So maybe you just want to stay single. Who wants to move to North Dakota? And with more than 34 percent of St. Louis adults in the same boat, the metro area should be positively packed with fun people to hang out with.
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