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San Francisco No Longer Top City For Singles

Jacksonville Ranks Dead Last, Says Forbes.com

Friday, September 5, 2008 – updated: 3:40 pm EDT September 5, 2008

There are 74 million single adults living in the United States, but not every city in America is ideally suited for the single lifestyle.

This of course forces the question, where to next?

Slideshow: Top 10 Cities For Singles

Forbes.com has some advice to offer to those not wearing wedding bands. It recently published the Top 50 Cities In America for single people. And there are some surprises.

Coming in at No. 1 for the first time ever is Atlanta. The home of Coca-Cola and CNN earned the top spot this year because of high rankings in seven different categories used to generate the list.

Forbes, along with Harris Interactive, ranked the 40 largest cities in America in the categories of coolness, cost of living alone, culture, job growth, online dating, nightlife and percentage of single people.

Forbes said that its rankings are meant to be a guide for young, ambitious singles who, in an age of techno-mobility, can live and work wherever they want. The methodology focuses on career-minded, "never-marrieds" under the age of 35.

San Francisco, last year’s Best City For Singles, slipped to No. 2 this year, but scored high in several categories including coolness and culture.

The metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul moved into the top 10 for the first time in six years, scoring big in online dating and coolness.

The nation’s two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, turned out disappointing numbers.

Los Angeles sunk from third place last year to 16th this year because of an abysmal online dating culture. New York was ranked No. 8, but was last in the cost of living alone category.

Jacksonville, Fla. scored dead last in the poll, scoring poorly in every category except online dating.

1.) Atlanta

2.) San Francisco

3.) Minneapolis

3.) Dallas

5.) Washington, D.C.

6.) Seattle

7.) Boston

8.) New York City

9.) Orlando

10.) Phoenix

11.) Denver-Aurora

11.) Chicago

13.) Miami

14.) Austin

15.) San Antonio

16.) Los Angeles

17.) Houston

18.) Charlotte

19.) San Diego

20.) St. Louis

21.) Columbus

22.) Philadelphia

23.) Tampa-St. Petersburg

24.) Las Vegas

25.) Baltimore

26.) Virginia Beach-Norfolk

27.) Detroit

28.) Pittsburg

29.) Portland

30.) Milwaukee

30.) Buffalo

32.) Sacramento

33.) Cincinnati

33.) Memphis

33.) Providence

36.) Kansas City

37.) Indianapolis

38.) Cleveland

39.) Salt Lake City

40.) Jacksonville

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