It's all a hoax that goes back to the late 19th Century. Western states were granting women the vote in order to try to attract some into moving out there. Now they produce bogus stats like this, hoping Hillary will make a campaign stop there.

Gay men move to San Francisco, and the lesbians who go there become men. In New York, everyone wants to become Carrie Bradshaw.

Or something like that.

Nice stereotype that of course all lesbians really want to be men...

It seems possible to me that the gender discrepancies in the heavily-female cities (NY, DC, Memphis, NO, etc.) can be attributed at least in some part to the number of black males absent for some reason (such as being in prison). Only a guess, to be sure, but perhaps the Western outliers (Albuquerque and El Paso) also are due to "missing" populations of poorer minority males (Native Am., Hispanic). Not to dispute that the white-collar knowledge economy is a factor, but this could be the other side of the coin.

The correlation between cities with high numbers of single women and cities with large African-American Populations seems significant. (http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/race_distribution.html)

Military bases out west?

I think Sean R is quite possibly right. St. Louis and Memphis, where I've lived, both have large black populations and disproportionate percentages of black men in prison. This probably doesn't hold for the counties, which are overwhelmingly white in both cities, but I don't think this map includes them. I wouldn't be surprised if this was also the case for similar cities like Chicago and New Orleans. Dallas and San Antonio, the biggest blue spots in Texas, have large immigrant populations, including lots of single Mexican men who immigrated by themselves into those cities, although I don't see why it would hold for the larger Texan cities and not Brownsville or Corpus Christi near the border.

But I have very little to explain the northeast corridor thing we're seeing ...

I find it incredible that Norfolk/Virginia Beach VA, with all those "squids" (Navy guys) stationed around there, is marked as having a surplus of single women.

I'm heading for that lil speck to the right of the Bay Area.

Speaking from Minneapolis, our number is actually quite skewed by the giant gay male population. Single *straight* men here are notoriously hard to come by.

The map/article compares cities of widely varying sizes but gives only absolute numbers, not percentages. And even the absolute numbers given are only for the differences between the male and female populations and not the actual sizes of those populations.

Two hundred thousand more women than men might be a lot in a given bar or restaurant. In New York City as a whole, the difference is harder to evaluate.

I think it's very possible the explanation could be immigration patterns. The areas of young single male dominance would seem to be the same areas in general that young immigrant men flock to. Of course women immigrate (legally and not) as well, but it seems like more men do than women.

Booring,

That little speck to the right of the Bay Area is Sacramento. You probably do not want to go there. There's no there there.

Who knew that Salt Lake City is the new Gay mecca? I just want to know where I can pick up my pink Mormon underwear.

I would look at the effects of economic migration, on the one hand, and differential incarceration rates on the other. E.g., what happens to these disparities if you break out the sex-ratio differences by race?

San Francisco maybe?

I posted this on my blog a couple of months ago. One of my commenters suggested that this was a demographic issue having to do with the age of populations. Widowed older women count as "single" and so places with large demographic overweighting towards older age brackets, ie the east and rust belt (and Miami!), have more apparently single women. The west has more younger folks, including many young immigrants. If one redraws the map to show only people aged 20-35, much of the disparities disappear.

Migrant workers from Mexico account for the overwhelming majority of the disparity in the West. Guys who are going as far away as New York or Boston have more incentive to bring their wives and children with them. If you're just working to buy a new washing machine or TV for the family to pick up at La Curacao or FAMSA back in Mexico, though, it makes sense to stay a shorter journey from the border.

Also, Los Angeles and San Francisco are magnets for the "hardcore" homeless--i.e., mentally ill and/or drug-addicted men.

Hardcore homeless aren't counted. And they go to towns which they have personal preference.

There's far more, say, Indian men in silicon valley, than women from there. That's the disparity. Places with more growth attract men from far-away communities which are less diverse and progressive.

It's not that we're being flooded with guys from the east. Unless they're gay. But I doubt it.

The agism is a good point as well.

Captain Metropolis,

I'd think twice before heading to Salt Lake City. The large number of single men is probably a function of Mormon men marrying multiple Mormon women. :P

Does LA have a lot of Mormons? Does DC have a hitherto unknown population of Amazon women who take multiple mates?

Oh, Salt Lake City absorbs all the excess young men from the surrounding communities - while bigamy isn't the biggest force there, you also have unemployed young men seeking jobs in the nearest city.

Young men are also less likely to be housed by their family than young women. That's another factor in the sexism of our country...

Personally, I was born in California, raised in the northwest, and came back to settle in the Bay Area.

The point about the high jail population (not counted in this survey) and high black population. We have what, a percent of our population jailed? It's going to seriously skew surveys like this which are in the low percentiles of difference.

The gender imbalance noted here is of long-standing. I did paper on the gender imbalance at the state (and metropolitan area) level in the mid-1980s using data from 1980 and found very similar patterns. There are a number of factors at work:

1. One of the comments about race is correct -- Adult African-American populations are very disproportionately female for 2 reasons -- Black males are much more likely to be missed in the census than Black females and many of the males are in jail/prison. This factor helps explain the gender structure of the south and of many northern cities.

2. A new ethnic factor is the presence of Latino (& especially Mexican) immigrants. This group is very heavily male so areas in the southwest with large %s of Mexican immigrants tend to have more men.

3. Military -- many areas in the South & West have military installations which skew the gender compposition toward males.

4. Industry -- areas that rely on "paper" industries (finace/real estate/government) tend to have higher %s of women in the work force; areas with manufacturing/extractive etc industries tend to have more men.

5. Age structure -- older populations tend to be more heavily female because of the higher mortality of men. Eastern cities tend to be older overall.

These are the principal factors and explain most of the variation. I'm sure the new high tech industries have some effect, too.

How does this map help people who are color blind?

Pretty clear to me. Men are smart. Women are stupid.

It's interesting that the map specifically mentions Long Beach. I have lived in LB for 20 years, and I think I can safely say that 98% of the single men are gay. The other 2% are young, surfer/skateboard dudes -- not my type. I'd move closer to Camp Pendleton, but aren't all those military guys Republicans?????

Because all the single men want to be closer to San Francisco.

California has 100,000 more women than men. Where are they?

"Nice stereotype that of course all lesbians really want to be men..."

Not so much a stereotype as a joke. Just like saying everyone in New York wants to be Carrie Bradshaw. I don't really believe that, nor do I honestly think that men in NYC own a lot of Manolos or worry about that.

I think jail and prison populations can account for a lot of the disparity, but not when I look at Florida. I would think Texas would show that trend as well, but it doesn't show that either. Only well-known tough-on-crime bastions such as New York, Atlanta, Memphis, and Washington DC show that trend. So maybe not.

Widows doesn't seem to explain it either, since Florida doesn't show a huge single female population outside of Miami.

Really, in the end, I conclude that the disparity in numbers isn't that big a deal in most of the dots shown. In a city of one million or more, less than 20,000 extra anything isn't that big a deal. One big college with a predominantly male or female population can skew that one way or the other. And immigrants can also skew things as well, mostly toward men.

Aside from a few big cities, I wouldn't base much on this map. It's certainly interesting in that it shows some modest differences, but they are not enough to move across the country for.

Every city I've ever lived in has a blue dot over it. I must be chasing the women away. Either that, or all the gay men want me.

I guess east coast girls really do believe in bitch being the new black.

/chauvinism

Also:

In New York, everyone wants to become Carrie Bradshaw.

Ugh, let's hand them some paper bags then.

The answer is simple: women are much smarter than men.

It's an indication that women are leading a great reversal in US demographics/lifestyle: a return to the old historic urban centers (eastern cities), from the 50s-90s California was hip and new but now it's cheap and shabby while NY etal have the historical cultural wealth.

Maybe it's true that women are less likely to travel, I'd feel feminist pressure to deny this though.

As a single female that lives in DC - between the surplus of single females and gay men - I'm doomed.

Race.

Let�s not forget that Roswell is out west. Kinda makes ya think, doesn�t it?

lol @ dept. of irrelevant correlations. That was brilliant.

Richard Florida clearly fails to take into account the hottness factor. Men move where there are hot women. Women who live on the east coast are not hot, therefore, men move to Southern California to be near hot (though unattainable) women, leaving the unattractive women to languish on the east coast and men single. Fairly simple explanation really. Apparently digging the styles they wear isn't enough anymore.

Traditionally men have been the sodbusters who settled the western frontier. Then, once established, they bring in their families. Maybe some of that is still going on (in the computer and aerospace industries??!)

Seriously, I would vote for the aging explanation -- the map doesn't break down the data by age so I'm guessing that the shorter male lifespan is leaving lots of single, elderly woman in the older, developed regions of the country with a more established service industry. Just visit any nursing or retirement home and you'll see what I'm talking about.

This doesn't explain all the blue dots in Florida, though. Immigrants? Military? Daytona/NASCAR?

Even an extraordinary extrovert is only going to know a couple hundred people. Less than a 1% difference? Not a factor in finding a mate. There's 105 boy babies born for every 100 female babies so a bigger difference than that begins at birth.

I think the only blue dot for Louisiana is roughly the place where Angola - the Louisiana State Penitentiary - is located.

What may be as telling as the super majorities are where the anomalies are. As I wrote just above the lone blue dot in Louisiana is roughly where the state pen is and the lone blue dot on the Mississippi gulf coast is roughly where Keesler AFB is located.

Does anyone have a guess as to the reasons for the lone pink dot in California?

I don't buy the idea that men are migrating from regions with declining economies. I think they are sitting on the couch with a sixpack while enterprising women move to New York City.

Seriously, between the giant proportion of black men in prison, the gay appeal of certain locations, and Mexican immigration patterns (which I would suspect are more highly gendered for various reasons), isn't that enough to account for this without having to resort to some stupid stereotype (that doesn't correspond to experience) about men being risk-takers and women being homebodies?

Ft. Benning is roughly where the blue dot in Georgia is.

I can offer some insights vis-a-vis MA.
Though how western/central MA can be considered a "metro area" is a bit of a puzzle. I suppose Worcester and Springfield are technically cities.

Anyway - the excess of single women in Western MA can probably be explained by the number of colleges in the area. Co-ed institutions have a higher percentage of women, AND there are a number of women-only/primarily schools(Smith, Mt Holyoke).

I knew I should stayed in the area, instead of moving to Metro-Boston.

Matt,

Speaking from Minneapolis, our number is actually quite skewed by the giant gay male population. Single *straight* men here are notoriously hard to come by.

Whaaaat?! Paul Bunyan is straight I tells ya.

Nope, you don't have the answer. The answer is simple. Nerds. Attract the nerds and the women will flee. Flee! Look at that map and tell me I'm wrong. I live in a tiny blue dot and now that we've started ejected the nerds the dot is getting smaller. I can't wait until we go red. Just in time for my inner Republican. Now watch me cheat on my wife.

A few employment-related factors:

High-tech areas should skew male. That explains the surplus of men in the Bay Area, and the more even pattern in Boston, compared to other East Coast cities.

Many of the industries that attract migrants to NYC -- publishing, fashion, media, public relations -- skew female. Finance is a huge exception.

I would expect that, in aging and economically declining areas, public-sector and nonprofit employment (e.g., health care) would be disproportionately female. By contrast, the heavily male construction industry should be stronger where the economy is booming.

Richard Skinner,

High-tech areas should skew male. That explains the surplus of men in the Bay Area, and the more even pattern in Boston, compared to other East Coast cities.

Thank you. Like I said - nerds. Friggin' nerds.

ok, completely random thought here- anyone ever compared the # of online personal ads for man v. women for these kind of studies? yes, I know it has lots of caveats, but you could conceivabably isolate factors like age, sexual orientation, location, etc.

...just wondering

"Like I said - nerds. Friggin' nerds."

NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDS!

it's an old-hat observation in NY.

standard explanation here:

industries in Manhattan skew heavily female (except for finance...even big law is 50% female when it comes to new associates).

200,000 extra single women makes a huge difference in the actual dating scene. why? the wonders of math. simply subtract all dating couples from the total number

say you have 800,000 men and 1 MM women. assume 500,000 relationships. now you have 300,000 available men and 500,000 available women. the ratio has gone from 4:5 to 3:5..getting you close to 1:2...which is exactly what it seems like here. it's an awesome place to be a single dude.

I think there's a racial/ethnic component. East coast cities, which have high black populations, have high populations of single women, since a large portion of the marriage-age male population is in jail.

On the west coast, Hispanic immigration, I assume, would tend to be male breadwinners first and women and children only after they established themselves.

and that's not even accounting for the gay male population.

ET - Amen, sister!

I wonder if they count incarcerated people? They might. They might not.

Nathan,

2:1 you say? Hmmm. Thirty years ago I was told the ratio was 7:1 here before I took the job. So how expensive is Manhattan again? I might could swing it. Probably not after the divorce though. Bummer. I better stay married.

You see, in the West, the women you have hog-tied in the cellar, or even the one in the lime-pit now is considered your girlfriend or even your wife. So all the girls are taken, leaving over a few men. In the East Coast, were you have to have the consent of a real live free women (not one you've kidnapped) to not be single, there are lot's more single women.
Basically, they are women whose boyfriends would beat them if they said they were single, so they keep quiet.

Consider it whacked.

Illegal immigrants are mostly male, while cities with big black populations are heavily female because so many of the black men are dead or in prison, or, to a lesser extent, in the military. For example, while there are 8% more women than men across all races in the U.S., there are 36% more black women than black men in New York City.

I offer an alternative map and data that refutes Florida's map here:

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