Philly is the most single big city in America

It isn’t crystal clear why, but poverty, transportation woes, and transience don’t help

It was Valentine’s Day 2023 when Rachel Harvey learned that the man she had been seeing for a year was cheating on her with 10 other women.

While her then-boyfriend purported to be at a work function, Harvey’s Facebook algorithm recommended the group ‘Are We Dating the Same Guy? Philly.’ She found posts about her man from women in Philly, New York, New Jersey, and Arizona.

Harvey said her ex-boyfriend chalked up his infidelity to a “miscommunication.”

“How could he have miscommunicated 10 times? … He met my parents,” said Harvey, 29, who lives in Northeast Philly.

It’s not just Harvey. It’s not just you. It’s Philly.

Philadelphia is the most single big city in the United States, according to data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, for 2018 to 2022, the latest reporting period.

That fact may not surprise anyone who’s been cheated on (or ghosted, or taken on a first date to Xfinity Live!) by a Philly guy or gal, but Philadelphians of all ages and races are less likely to be married than in any of the 10 most populous U.S. cities.

Of course, those data have caveats. “Never married” folks also include those in long-term relationships with no plans of marriage, but also polyamorous groups, situationships, and whatever a long-term, long-distance, low commitment casual girlfriend is. In addition, only Philly proper is an outlier. The larger metro area has a marriage rate in line with its peers.

This made us wonder: Why is Philly so dang single? Or, what makes Philadelphians so noncommittal?

We talked to 11 Philadelphia singles, two matchmakers, and three social scientists to learn about Philly’s statistical single-dom. And while there’s no one answer, the explanations range from income inequality and the vestiges of redlining to less dour things, such as our refusal to date across Broad Street.

Yes, money matters

After Harvey’s cheating discovery, she went back on the prowl with criteria: a boyfriend hotter than she was who made as much — or more — money than she did.

“I have a certain lifestyle I like to live,” said Harvey. “Money causes hardships, and if I’m dating someone who makes half of what I make … that would put unnecessary strain — for me, personally — on my relationship.”

Harvey’s refrain is common. People may seek a partner of the same socioeconomic status for a variety of reasons, including the stigma of “dating down” from your socioeconomic class to the belief that sharing financial goals could make a relationship last longer.

That’s harder to do in Philly, a city with severe income inequality.

Philly is simultaneously America's poorest big city and touted for its low barriers to home-ownership and low cost of living.

The city’s structural inequities could actually encourage some Philly singles to use “dating as a strategy for upward mobility and [to cover] their basic economic needs,” according to Kristen Ghodsee, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies the relationship between sexuality and economics.

Deliberately dating and marrying upward is common in economically unequal societies, said Ghodsee, noting that inequality is highly salient in Philly.

Andres Villatoro, a sociology doctoral student at Penn who moved from Chicago in 2021, said that the pool of eligible men he “has stuff in common with has gotten smaller and smaller” as his education and income level increased.

“It feels like slim pickings,” Villatoro said, admitting that he sticks to dating around Rittenhouse Square and Fishtown — two of Philly’s highest-income neighborhoods.

But even when boy successfully meets girl (or boy, or girl meets girl), both might want amenities the city doesn’t provide, particularly if they can afford to move out.

“The minute you couple up and have kids, you move to the suburbs,” said Ghodsee, citing Philadelphia’s poorly rated public schools. In other words, it may be less that Philadelphians don’t pair off than that the ones who do pick up and leave.

‘What if I wanted to date within my culture?’

The economic precarity of dating in Philly is compounded when you factor in race.

A major reason Philly is more single than other big cities is that it’s the Blackest of the top 10 – and Black Americans, for a long list of historical reasons, are less likely to marry than other groups.

“The institution of marriage evolved differently for Black Americans and white Americans because of slavery,” said Ashton Verdery, a Pennsylvania State University sociologist who studies social networks and connectedness. “And then later, in the 1960s and 1970s, marriage rates for Black Americans collapsed much sooner than for white Americans.”

The reasons for that collapse are many, and are contested by social scientists. But Verdery said that enduring poverty, the drug epidemics of the 1970s and 1980s, and mass incarceration — which reduce the population of eligible men, in particular, and make it hard for people to settle down and start families — don’t help.

All the while, Black women’s educational attainment has risen quickly, meaning that Black women are competing for a smaller pool of economic peers.

“Our dating pool is really bad. Black men are treated like public enemy No. 1 … and get sucked into” that stereotype, said Gwendolyn Blackshear, 43, a Philly public school teacher with a doctorate in educational leadership. It feels as if “all the Black men are either dead, in jail” or otherwise unavailable, she said.

The challenges facing Black singles are only part of the story. In Philly, all other major ethnic groups — white, Asian, and Hispanic — are marrying at lower rates than their counterparts in other major cities.

Nearly all of the non-white singles The Inquirer interviewed noted a lack of spaces to meet other singles of color, especially if they hope to find someone from the same background.

“Philly feels so Black and white. It’s hard for me to find diversity outside of that,” said Villatoro, 34, who is Latinx. “What if I wanted to date within my culture? It doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of us around here.”

Dating apps aren’t much better, said Melissa Alam, a 35-year-old South Asian brand designer who would prefer to date another person of color, “which cuts the city in half.”

From there, “it’s bum after bum after truck driver after Soundcloud rapper,” said Alam, who felt so discouraged by Philly’s lack of upwardly mobile men of color that she moved to Mexico City in December. Alam said she’s already faring better there, though she’d consider moving back if Philly imported “sexier men of color with higher-paying jobs.”

Well, have you tried dating east of Broad Street?

Catherine Clark said a potential suitor once called her “geographically undesirable” because she lived too deep into Northeast Philly. Unfazed, even Clark, 35, has limits to how far she’d travel for a date.

“I don’t want to be someone's Uber,” said Clark, who prefers her beau to have a car and live less than an hour away.

Philadelphians tend to date within their neighborhoods, said Michal Naisteter and Erika Kaplan, two longtime Philadelphia matchmakers who used to work together at the dating service Three Day Rule. This gives Philadelphia singles an artificial sense that they know everybody already — or at least everybody worth dating.

“Growing up here makes [dating] more intimidating because … even though Philly is such a large city, it feels like there are six people here and we all know each other,” said Nina Starner, 33, who lives in Old City, where she grew up.

“Everyone knows everyone, so it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have a bad reputation,” said Raet Craig, 23, who grew up in Northeast Philly and lives in West Kensington. Craig often finds himself asking his friends if they know a new suitor. “More often than not,” he said, “there’s a story.”

Naisteter said this been-there-dated-that attitude is “an easy trap to fall into,” especially when Philly’s perpetual transportation woes (and lack of car ownership) can make it difficult to leave your neighborhood for what could be a dud of a first date.

Still, Naisteter cautions pessimistic singles to not blame everything on Philly’s public transit or the lame people you might already know.

“Be careful with the story you tell yourself, because moving to a new city might not change that,” said Naisteter.

Here today, gone next year

In reality, so many singles are passing through Philly. Unlike that of other age cohorts, Philly’s Gen Z population continued growing through the pandemic, building on a long-term growth in the city’s young population that’s largely driven by Philadelphia’s strong hospital systems and graduate schools, institutions that bring students and medical trainees to the city temporarily.

When Tatyannah King, 28, moved to Southwest Philly in 2020 from Durham, N.C., to pursue a master’s in human sexuality studies at Widener University, she said “it was a Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz moment” when it came to dating.

Philly has more options, King said, and the men tended to be “better looking and have more going for them.”

But do those men want a long-term relationship? Not necessarily.

“The things that make [Philly] a great place for singles to live are also what makes it challenging,” said King. “Everyone who moves here can definitely find someone, but will they commit? Maybe not.”

Naisteter said that a lot of her clients are people who “used their 20s and 30s to study and become high achievers,” a time in their lives when others might be focused on coupling up to settle down. Once they hit middle age, Naisteter said, they’re ready for a life partner, yet nervous they already missed out.

“At my age, the dating pool shrinks and you get stuck with people who are either really eager … or super frustrated with being single,” said Christopher Nelson, a lawyer who recently turned 40.

Cheating survivor Harvey believes Philadelphia singles can find someone if they commit to going on a lot of first dates without expectations. That’s what she did until she met Nick, her current boyfriend and a “cutie-patootie.”

He’s from Trenton, though. So maybe look there?