Forbes is out with its annual Best Cities for Singles feature. They have made a few changes this year and there is a new number one city - San Francisco.
There have been major changes in the rankings this year. The winner: San Francisco, up from fourth place. It ranked first for culture and received high marks for number of singles, nightlife, online dating and cool. The "city that never sleeps," New York, N.Y., came in a strong second place, thanks to its performance as the country's No. 1 spot for nightlife. Entertainment mecca Los Angeles came in third, Atlanta fourth and Chicago fifth. Rounding out the top 10 are Washington D.C., San Diego, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth and Philadelphia.
Denver, meanwhile, our top-ranked city from 2004 to 2006, has dropped to 16th place. But before Denver city elders start beating themselves up over this, we should note that this is largely because, amid several refinements to our methodology this year, we've switched to a new way of defining each city. In the past, the boundaries and population of each city were drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau's list of "Metropolitan Statistical Areas." But in 2007, we've begun using the Census Bureau's "Urbanized Area," which provides a tighter focus on cities themselves.
Wow that's quite the nose dive for Denver falling all the way from the #1 spot to #16. It looks the tighter focus on the city of Denver was not too good for its ranking.
Best Ten Cities for Singles according to Forbes.
San Francisco-Oakland
New York
Los Angeles
Atlanta
Chicago
Wasington
San Diego
Seattle
Dallas-Fort Worth
Philadelphia
The cities are ranked using seven different categories: nightlife, culture, job growth, number of singles, cost of living alone, coolness and online dating.
You can see a slideshow of the best forty cities here on Forbes.com.
SFist posts about being number one. Buffalo Rising was glad to see Buffalo make this list this year at #31. You can also see a Google Mashup of Forbes's Best Cities data here (hat tip Google Maps Mania).
