The Dating Game

Lots of talk on the blogs about Richard Florida's map of where the single people are and its finding that there's a surplus of single men in most west coast cities, and a surplus of single women (though less uniformly) in most northeastern and midwestern cities.

Whenever I see discussion of this kind of thing, it always strikes me that it's necessary to remind people that this kind of data is probably too crude to have implications for what "singles" life is like in one place or another. The issue is that dating in the real world tends to be pretty circumscribed by socioeconomic characteristics. Insofar as a large number of men from Mexico may have migrated to Southern California to work in construction while leaving their wives behind in the old country, a young Smith grad isn't all that likely to start up a relationship with them if she moves to San Diego. Miami's excess of single women may be driven by widows, since women tend to live longer than men, and in some cities the gender balance is going to be skewed by the heavy incarceration rates of underclass men. None of this, however, has much of anything to do with the dating prospects of Florida's "creative class" professionals.

Comments

I bet that this post is going to have at least 100 replies within the next two hours. Posts about love & romance have a pretty universal appeal.

Posted by Hector | April 3, 2008 2:31 PM

Another issue is the fact that they failed to control for hotness, though as you mention, age could be a fair surrogate.

Posted by J.W. Hamner | April 3, 2008 2:34 PM

Don't forget the gays. The mass of single men in the San Francisco Bay area doesn't necessarily imply easy pickings for single women there.

Posted by Gabe | April 3, 2008 2:34 PM

... this kind of data is probably too crude to have implications for what "singles" life is like in one place or another.

Yep. Although it does let people know where to find surplus members of the opposite sex. That's about it, though, since KC has more single women than men but is often on the list of "worst dating cities."

Although that may have to do with the rather scarce amount of places one can take a date here in KC -- it's a fairly family-centric town.

Posted by Mark D | April 3, 2008 2:35 PM

Where's the map showing the locations with the greatest proportion of fat chicks? Or am I just supposed to know it's Ohio or something?

Posted by Rid | April 3, 2008 2:37 PM

"Insofar as a large number of men from Mexico may have migrated to Southern California to work in construction while leaving their wives behind in the old country, a young Smith grad isn't all that likely to start up a relationship with them if she moves to San Diego."

Especially since that young Smith grad is probably a lesbian.

Posted by Juan | April 3, 2008 2:40 PM

I don't know Matt. One man's widow is another man's GILF...

Posted by afferent input | April 3, 2008 2:40 PM

Ah, I wondered how a painfully shy bookworm like Matt could snag that smart and pretty girlfriend.

Posted by Gary Sugar | April 3, 2008 2:41 PM

This map strikes me as undoubtedly bogus. Just look at the state of Illinois, for instance. The size of the dot that represents Chicago (pink) is the same as the dots by Greencastle, Ind., Urbana, Peoria and Moline. How can this be possible? Are those small Illinois cities really overwhelmingly male and unattached? Something tells me that maybe you can have dots in the major metropolitan areas but the smaller dots have no value.

Posted by Jared | April 3, 2008 2:43 PM

Wouldn't a more useful metric be the simple gender ratio? Each of 10 heterosexual men have a better chance in a room with 20 heterosexual women than a man of 1,000,000 men has with 1,000,010 women. Presumably.

Posted by Zephyrus | April 3, 2008 2:46 PM

I agree that things like immigration and aging populations are a factor, but what about the larger east-west divide? Immigration can't explain ALL those single men in California, can it? And if the difference is the result of immigration, not movement within the the US population, where are all the men from the northeast going?

Posted by lackluster | April 3, 2008 2:50 PM

That dot looks a lot closer to Terre Haute than Greencastle. Although I do like how we have a cool "Orion's belt" thing happening through Illinois. It nicely separates the good part of Illinois from the crappy part. Maybe all the chicks moved to Chicago.
I've got no problem with Chambana. It was a fun few years, but would you want to live in Peoria or Moline?

But in all seriousness, Moline = John Deere, and Peoria = Caterpillar. I can understand why there would be larger male populations there.

Posted by Seitz | April 3, 2008 2:52 PM

The interesting thing for me is that little band of contrasting dots in the Northeast. One town has excess women and the adjacent town has excess men. It's 70,000 Wives for 70,000 Brothers!

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 3, 2008 2:52 PM

Also, note that the chart clearly states that it only includes singles 20-64, which would seem to argue against the power of the widow effect.

Posted by lackluster | April 3, 2008 2:53 PM

For all the people complaining about the accuracy of this map, the truth is that the dating scene for men is a lot better when you're living in DC or NYC than it is when you're living in the SF/Silicon Valley area.

Posted by Tyro | April 3, 2008 2:53 PM

"Don't forget the gays. The mass of single men in the San Francisco Bay area doesn't necessarily imply easy pickings for single women there."

This same observation applied to NYC amplifies the severity of the problem there for single women, I would think.

Posted by Tom | April 3, 2008 2:57 PM

it always strikes me that it's necessary to remind people that this kind of data is probably too crude to have implications for what "singles" life is like in one place or another

True dat. Before women head en masse to San Francisco, one might want to remember there's something particular about San Francisco that may account for its large surplus of single men. Something queer, even...

Posted by McKingford | April 3, 2008 2:59 PM

I think prison population does constitute a large part of the difference at least for St. Louis. Driving through the streets of the Northside and destitute inner ring suburbs, males are few and far between. However, the jails are filled with men from the Northside and inner ring suburbs. Seriously, I challenge any St. Louisan to drive on Natural Bridge for the couple miles west of Kingshighway and find more than a couple men out and about.

Posted by lh | April 3, 2008 3:00 PM

I wouldn't argue against the accuracy of the map, I would just argue that SoCal women are much much hotter than women in the Northeast, so it might be worth the gender gap.

Posted by J.W. Hamner | April 3, 2008 3:01 PM

"The issue is that dating in the real world tends to be pretty circumscribed by socioeconomic characteristics."

You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

"Pretty circumscribed" is like "sort of pregnant." A point is either circumscribed or it isn't.

Posted by Pedantic Asshole | April 3, 2008 3:01 PM

It looks like too many young men went west.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 3, 2008 3:03 PM

I think prison population does constitute a large part of the difference at least for St. Louis. Driving through the streets of the Northside and destitute inner ring suburbs, males are few and far between. However, the jails are filled with men from the Northside and inner ring suburbs. Seriously, I challenge any St. Louisan to drive on Natural Bridge for the couple miles west of Kingshighway and find more than a couple men out and about.

Posted by lh | April 3, 2008 3:03 PM

Zephyrus -- Yes, that was also my first thought. Just a very minor gender ratio imbalance in a densely populated area (e.g., NY-NJ) will produce a very big dot.

On the other hand, there's a compelling chapter in Tim Harford's new book The Logic Of Life pointing out how even a very small gender ratio imbalance can have dramatic effects on dating conditions.

Posted by Trieu | April 3, 2008 3:04 PM

Each of 10 heterosexual men have a better chance in a room with 20 heterosexual women than a man of 1,000,000 men has with 1,000,010 women.

I dunno. In the former you have, at best, a selection of 20 women. In the latter you have a choice of 1,000,010 women. I know where I'd rather be.

Posted by McKingford | April 3, 2008 3:04 PM

Matt claims that widows in Miami don't affect the singles market for the young creative class. I don't think that's quite right. A surplus of women in their sixties means that more straight men in their fifties will date older women, leaving a surplus of women in their fifties, some of whom will date 40-year-old men; etc. The effect is indirect, but I think it still exists. Similarly, in a city such as Baltimore, even a woman who wouldn't date a felon will suffer increased competition when lots of young men are locked up; the man of her dreams might be dating a woman who otherwise would be with a felon.

Posted by Allan | April 3, 2008 3:09 PM

Interestingly, my son is in the early stages of looking at colleges. His general approach, encouraged in part by me I suppose, is to look at places where he would like to live and study and then to look at the schools that are in those places.

His top spots at this point:

Seattle
Portland
San Francisco
San Diego
Austin
Minneapolis/Saint Paul

This matches up very well with what the map says about popular locations for young males.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 3, 2008 3:13 PM

Well, all I have is my personal experience. But from that I can say that the dating life for men in Austin blows. Not many women, not as attractive as you'd think. NYC? Awesome. SF is also fine- it would be nice if this map ignored the queer part of the population as they are not impacted by gender ratios.

Posted by mpowell | April 3, 2008 3:20 PM

Is the data available for just 20-35 year old heterosexual singles? That would probably be more interesting and suited to the (presumed) purpose.

Posted by right | April 3, 2008 3:21 PM

It's been said before but here in seattle and pdx and the sf bay... there are lots of gays, i mean really lots of them.

Posted by aarons | April 3, 2008 3:23 PM

This chart supports my anecdotal experience - I live in LA and take short trips to NYC occasionally. Every trip to NYC always, without fail, results in my striking up a conversation with some new, single female stranger under some circumstance (waiting for the train, at a restaurant, in a store somewhere, etc...), while in LA I can go months without meeting any new single women.

I had thought it was more the result of different lifestyles in these cities (car vs. walking cultures), but, at least in these two cities, I wouldn't be surprised if this chart wasn't fairly accurate.

Posted by Bill Cunningham | April 3, 2008 3:25 PM

I find it hard to believe that gays are responsible for the overwhelming blueness of the SF bay area in this map. If SF proper were a big blue dot surrounded by small dots of various colors, that'd be one thing.

I suspect that the maleness of the area is likely pushed up by immigrant males (both working class in all the ways that immigrants normally fill the working class in California, and white-collar immigrants drawn in by Silicon valley) more than by gays. That certainly fits my anecdotal experience dating around here.

Posted by Michael B Sullivan | April 3, 2008 3:28 PM

NYC women are hot. Let's not overlook quality for the sake of quantity.

Posted by blah | April 3, 2008 3:29 PM

If you go to epodunk.com, go to a county, and choose "marital status" "census and demographics" you can see the numbers of single/never married, divorced, widowed, etc men and women. The "single/never married" men and women provide an OK approximation of single person ratios. It does also validate the point that a lot of gender imbalances stem from older widows.

As one of the previous posters mentioned, one shouldn't assume that the certain dating groups are cordoned off. If you're a philosophy grad student and there's a large military base, there might be some women who date both soldiers and philosophers who are then unavailable. Or there could be some women who date lawyers and philosophers and other women who date lawyers and soldiers. The lawyers have to start dating the lawyer/philosopher women because the lawyer/soldier women are all unavailable, thus creating problems for the philosophy grad student.

Posted by Fyodor | April 3, 2008 3:31 PM

The map matches my experiences in MPLS and in NYC -- was a lot easier to meet women in the latter.

Posted by decoud | April 3, 2008 3:37 PM

that NYC is a great place for single men is hardly a secret.

but then you have calculate the real ratio.

let's say there are 800,000 single women and 600,000 single men. assume that half the men are in (somewhat) committed relationships. that leaves 500,000 women for 300,000 men. instead of 4:3, it's actually 5:3...getting close to 2:1 (which is what it feels like).

Posted by Nathan | April 3, 2008 3:40 PM

that NYC is a great place for single men is hardly a secret.

but then you have calculate the real ratio.

let's say there are 800,000 single women and 600,000 single men. assume that half the men are in (somewhat) committed relationships. that leaves 500,000 women for 300,000 men. instead of 4:3, it's actually 5:3...getting close to 2:1 (which is what it feels like).

Posted by Nathan | April 3, 2008 3:40 PM

Growing cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver, which have (or, more accurately, had) a lot of construction activity, attract men from other parts of the country in search of construction work. It's reasonable to say that single men are more likely to relocate in this manner than are their married counterparts. Hence, the "blueness" of such locations.

In any event, as a prior comment noted, the gender imbalances in most places aren't necessarily significant. So there are 89K more single men than single women in the Los Angeles metro area? Considering the area's huge population, that number is rather trivial.

Posted by Peter | April 3, 2008 3:48 PM

LA is also such a huge place that the local densities probably matter a lot more. If you're down in Orange County somewhere, that's a lot different than if you're up in Santa Monica.

Posted by mpowell | April 3, 2008 3:51 PM

and a surplus of single women (though less uniformly) in most northeastern and midwestern cities.

Seems to me that the map shows a lot more single females in the South than the Midwest. Other than Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit the Midwest is fairly blue and other than south-central Florida the South is fairly red from DC to Texas.

Posted by Just Karl | April 3, 2008 3:55 PM

Miami's excess of single women may be driven by widows

The map is restricted to those between 20 and 64. Widowness shouldn't be much of a factor.

Posted by Antid Oto | April 3, 2008 4:03 PM

Half Sigma took some survey figures and has a martial-status breakdown for whites aged 25-40 in a few cities and suburban areas. Using race makes sense because most people seek dating and marriage partners of their own race.

Posted by Peter | April 3, 2008 4:14 PM

The Northeast is kinda interesting. You've got tons of excess women in (it looks like) NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and DC. But you've got excess men in a lot of the smaller surrounding cities - White Plains? New Haven? Allentown? Wilmington? Fredrick?

Why would that occur?

Posted by Al | April 3, 2008 4:19 PM

Like zombies, hot chicks stumble into Charleston, making even lumpy frat boys attractive to the ladies. As I can personally vouch, it's a true wonderland for the mediocre male. The small red dot does it no justice.

Posted by Pat Hendrix | April 3, 2008 4:21 PM

Florida's collection of maps are interesting, but are prone to anomalies. For example, Florida's "Human Capital Map" tends to indicate that Yellowstone Park and Jackson, WY is more educated than most of Portland, OR.

Perhaps the National Park Service has been teaching up the bison and the bears.

Posted by Klug | April 3, 2008 4:23 PM

What? Did no one here watch Sex and the City? it affirms both the NYC and LA dots--both the premise of the entire show, based in NYC, and when they went on vacation in LA and all the gals met men right away.... plus there was that cross country train trip that had Samantha so frustrated.

Any other pop culture references that confirm these stats? Will and Grace? Ellen? Suddenly Susan? Help me out here, people....

Posted by kajey | April 3, 2008 4:44 PM

Richard Florida gets $35k a speech to spread trendy confusion. Anything with Richard Florida's name attached to it should be automatically suspect for shoddy reasoning.

Posted by Steve Sailer | April 3, 2008 4:44 PM

A big reason there are so many blue dots in the South, East, and Great Lakes is because so many black men are dead or in prison. Jonathan Tilove, whom you _can_ trust wrote:

"But the most salient statistic about East Orange [NJ] is the number of black men who are not there. Under the age of 18, there are more black boys than girls. Among the adult population, however, there are 37 percent more women than men.

Where are these missing men? Most are dead. Many others are locked up. Some are in the military.

Worse yet, the gender imbalance in East Orange is not some grotesque anomaly. It's a vivid snapshot of a very troubling reality in black America.

There are nearly two million more black adult women than men in America, stark testimony to how often black men die before their time. With nearly another million black men in prison or the military, the real imbalance is even greater -- a gap of 2.8 million, according to U.S. Census data for 2002. On average, then, there are 26 percent more black women than black men; among whites, women outnumber men by just 8 percent.

Perhaps no single statistic so precisely measures the fateful, often fatal, price of being a black man in America, or so powerfully conveys how beset black communities are by the violence and disease that leaves them bereft of brothers, fathers, husbands and sons, and leaves whole communities reeling. ...

In the March/April issue of Health Affairs, Dr. David Satcher, surgeon general under former President Bill Clinton and now the interim president of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, exposes the core of the problem: Between 1960 and 2000, the disparity between mortality rates for black and white women narrowed while the disparity between the rates for black and white men grew wider.

Exponentially higher homicide and AIDS rates play their part, especially among younger black men. Even more deadly through middle age and beyond are higher rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The imbalance between the numbers of black men and women does not exist everywhere. There is no gap to speak of in places with relatively small black populations like Minneapolis, Minn.; Portland, Ore.; San Francisco and San Diego. And Seattle actually has more black men than women.

But it is the rule in communities with large concentrated black populations. There are, for instance, more than 30 percent more black women than men in Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago and Cleveland, and in smaller cities like Harrisburg, Pa. There are 36 percent more black women than men in New York City, and 37 percent more in Saginaw, Mich., and Philadelphia. In Newark, the figure is 26 percent.

In East Orange, there were more black males under 18 than females in 2000. And yet, there were 29 percent more black women than men in their 20s.,,

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/05/perhaps-this-helps-explain-decline-in.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | April 3, 2008 4:49 PM

For once, I'm going to have to agree with Sailer. My first thought, seeing Atlanta, Memphis, the Carolinas and the I-95 corridor in red, was the number of men in those states, mostly black, locked up on the edge of small, very white towns.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 3, 2008 5:12 PM

it always strikes me that it's necessary to remind people that this kind of data is probably too crude to have implications for what "singles" life is like in one place or another.

I dunno. New York is the easiest place to get laid on the planet--well, for a guy.

Posted by jim | April 3, 2008 5:16 PM

A big reason there are so many blue dots in the South, East, and Great Lakes is because so many black men are dead or in prison.

Because the prison population in California and Phoenix and Dallas is so low. Right.

Posted by Al | April 3, 2008 5:32 PM

Richard Florida gets $35k a speech to spread trendy confusion. Anything with Richard Florida's name attached to it should be automatically suspect for shoddy reasoning.

I actually agree with this.

Florida has just moved to Toronto and is the head of some kind of institute here, all to much fanfare (Toronto loves anyone who affirms the great thing Torontonians think of themselves). They give him a biweekly column in the paper. Anyway, in his first column he wrote about *driving* from his neighborhood to Kensington Market.

I'm not sure I can think of an apt analogy, but that is about as idiotic as driving from Comerica Park to Ford Field in Detroit (and for those who don't know Detroit - trust me: pretty fucking idiotic). Needless to say, Richard Florida's cred as an urban issues guy ain't what it was.

Posted by McKingford | April 3, 2008 6:05 PM

At the risk of inducing thread drift, I've got to say that I'm surprised at the number of NYC guys talking about how easy it is to get a date/get laid here. It's the toughest place I've lived in my adult life for both, and I've spent time in several major cities in the U.S. and abroad. In my humble opinion, Florida needs to correct for the "cold and unapproachable" factor when he draws his pink dot on New York.

Posted by Planet on the Table | April 3, 2008 6:10 PM

Florida needs to correct for the "cold and unapproachable" factor

Have you ever thought your approach might be the problem, especially since other NYC men don't seem to have the same one?

Posted by Antid Oto | April 3, 2008 6:19 PM

Al says: "Because the prison population in California and Phoenix and Dallas is so low. Right."

Blacks are not a large part of the population of those three states compared to the Deep South or Mid Atlantic and Great Lakes cities. The prison population in California, Arizona, and Texas is heavily Hispanic.

But, Hispanics on average are imprisoned only about 3/7ths as much as blacks, and their homicide / homicide victimization rate is also substantially lower than blacks. So, there are not as many missing men as in heavily black urban centers.

Posted by Steve Sailer | April 3, 2008 6:21 PM

I've got to say that I'm surprised at the number of NYC guys talking about how easy it is to get a date/get laid here. It's the toughest place I've lived in my adult life for both

How old were you at the time you were in NYC? Nothing strikes me as worse than trying to date in NYC while in your early 20s, but into your late 20s/early 30s, meeting NYC women has been a lot easier.

(Also, lots of NYC women will try to perpetuate the idea that other NYC women are cold and unapproachable, to keep you away from the temptation of looking elsewhere)

Posted by Tyro | April 3, 2008 8:08 PM

Yeah, but it creates a downward pressure. The average man would be able to get a slightly hotter girlfriend in CA then they would in NY. So while your Smith grad wouldn't be dating a migrant laborer, she'll end up dating some guy who would ordinarily be dating a girl who has to settle for a migrant worker.

(Also, isn't this census data which wouldn't include illegals anyway?)

Posted by example | April 3, 2008 9:52 PM

A big reason there are so many blue dots in the South, East, and Great Lakes is because so many black men are dead or in prison. Jonathan Tilove, whom you _can_ trust wrote:

Where are these missing men? Most are dead. Many others are locked up. Some are in the military.

Hey you idiot, look at the map again. Blue dots are where there are excess men, red dots are excess women. You're entire theory is shot, much like all your idiotic racist theories.

Also, there is no reason to suspect that prison populations are excluded from the map.

Posted by example | April 3, 2008 9:57 PM

Matt:

I live in San Diego. San Diego is the home of the Pacific Fleet. The presence of a couple hundred thousand sailors, most of whom are single and male might have something to do with the ratio of men and women. I'm just saying.

Posted by Patrick Hines | April 3, 2008 10:36 PM

Chicagoan here. A friend of mine made one of the all-time great quips about single youngish professional malehood here:

"Being a 30-ish single guy in Chicago is more like college than college."

Posted by retro-shiite | April 3, 2008 10:57 PM

Think outside the box, folks.

Isn't it obvious?

Dudes prefer earthquakes while the babes want tornadoes.

So simple but it took little old me to point out the quasi-obvious.

Carry on.

Posted by Obbop | April 4, 2008 12:58 AM

A data-driven, map vs. map refutation of Florida's thesis that address concerns raised in this thread:

http://elvaliente.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/towards-a-better-singles-map/

Posted by Julio Gonzalez Altamirano | April 4, 2008 2:46 AM

"The mass of single men in the San Francisco Bay area doesn't necessarily imply easy pickings for single women there."

The usual presumption that most of them are gay is, last I heard, completely incorrect, and in fact, despite the perception of San Francisco females that all the good men are gay and there are too few straight men, according to stats there are in fact more single straight men in SF than single straight women.

Don't ask me to cite, I saw that study some years ago, but I doubt it's changed much since.

You also have to account for the lesbians, and then there's the issue of ethnicity, since there are large Asian populations here that tend to marry within their own ethnicity or nationality.

"a martial-status breakdown" - that wasn't a typo, right? As I always say, the only difference between "marital" and "martial" is in the placement of the letter "I"...Think about it.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 4, 2008 4:10 AM