Providence 15th Best American City for Singles

Providence 15th Best American City for Singles

Is this good news for a single girl?

Perhaps if a girl (or guy) loves being single. Forbes magazine wrestles annually with which American cities are the best for singles, and Providence sits at a very respectable 15th. Now just so we're clear: this is about living single, not moving from being single to being wrapped up in matrimony. That's another ranking all together.

How'd Providence fare in the metric web created by Forbes? First of all, let's examine the methodology. They ranked 40 of the largest continental U.S. metropolitan statistical areas in seven different categories: coolness, cost of living alone, culture, job growth, online dating participation, nightlife and the ratio of singles to the entire population of the metro. Each metro was assigned a ranking of 1 to 40 in each category, based on quantitative data, and all categories were weighted equally. Fair enough. I guess. This doesn't take safety, access to STD counseling, or ratio of ER visits to cocktail lounges into consideration, but there's always room for improvement in science, right?

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

So let's see how we're doing. First off, I'm a little disappointed we're ranked behind Cleveland, but it feels good to beat out the hipster scene in Portland. Nike, schmikey. And while I'm ready to crow about landing in the number one position overall in culture, it's shocking to see that we came in nearly dead last in "coolness." Only Houston is less cool. That hurts, and that's got to give us Providence residents something to fix. Like, now. Before local singles give up and move to higher-ranking Boston. Or get married.

Heaven forbid.

Here's the whole table, right here.