Philadelphia a Top City for Dating, Somehow Worse Than Richmond

Philadelphia ranks 10th, right behind Richmond, on a new Zillow list of best cities for singles.

Congratulations, Philadelphians! We made it on to some stupid list again, and now I’m blogging about it. This time it’s from Zillow, who we last saw telling us 10 strange reasons to move to Philly. Now little ol’ Philadelphia is ranked 10th on the list of 10 Best Metros for Meeting Your Valentine.

The list was restricted to U.S. cities with a metro area population over 750,000 and was calculated by “areas with (1) a large proportion of singles, (2) a high average income after rent for those singles and (3) a large number of possible date spots in the area.” The “possible date spots” were “restaurants, bars and entertainment (museums, parks, zoos, etc.).” (There’s no word on what the “etc.” can include. Are the Magic Gardens included? Now that’s a good Philadelphia date spot.) San Francisco took the top spot.

But look who we’re behind:

Richmond! I didn’t even know that Richmond had 750,000 people in the metro area. (It has a 1.2 million metro population!) I can stand losing to Baltimore — No. 8 — but behind a city with no major professional sports teams and a college nicknamed the Spiders? Do they even have any romantics like the Swiss Cheese Pervert? This wouldn’t stand.

As it so happens, I know someone who went to Richmond and rooted for the Spiders for four years. “It’s just easy,” she says via text message, “that’s how I always describe living in Richmond.” Who wants to live in a city that’s easy? (Before admonishing me to be nice to Richmond, she also said that Philadelphia was indeed better for dating: “Zero,” she rated how much better Richmond was for dating than Philly. “People get married younger and the dating pool for 25+ is smaller.” This seems to show people get married slightly earlier in Richmond than in Philadelphia.)

I’m sure Richmond is a fine city. I’ve heard good things from my friend! But here in Philadelphia we have so many famous couples: Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross, the Philadelphia version of Bonnie and Clyde and, I dunno, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier. The best romantic couple from Richmond I can find is three-way relationship between Patrick Henry, liberty and death.

[Zillow via CBS 3]