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Rankings

Best Cities to Find a Date in 2012, From Atlanta to Boston (Photos)

From Salt Lake City to Phoenix, The Daily Beast ranks the best places to find love in 2012.

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For singles the new year means a new year of opportunity to find the perfect partner, or at least a few quick flings. But location can be as important as anything for finding that just-right mix of attractiveness and chemistry. With that in mind, The Daily Beast ranks the 25 best cities for dating. To find them, we combined three main components using the most recent data available, by generating z-scores for each datapoint:

Available singles: Using summary Census data from 2008 to 2010, we took into account the percentage of men who are single (never married, divorced, or widowed) over age 15, and the percentage of women over age 15 who are single; we also accounted for the percentage of total singles in each city. The cities that performed the best had a roughly equal percentage of single men and women, and a high percentage of overall singles.

Dating costs: Using cost-of-living data from the third quarter of 2011 and average-salary data for nonfamily households (people living alone or with nonrelatives) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The cities that performed best had a relatively high average salary for singles and a low overall cost of living, freeing up more cash for dating.

Mental and physical health: Using the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which measures emotional and physical health, among other things—a city with healthy residents is a city where people are going to be more open to putting themselves out on the dating scene.

Finally, we used Google Trends to measure the popularity of five major dating websites: Match.com, eHarmony.com, okCupid.com, Plentyoffish.com, and Zoosk.com. A sliding scale of bonus points were given to cities that ranked in the top 10 for each website.

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Single men (percentage of the male population age 15 and older that is single): 47%
Single women: (percentage of the female population age 15 and older that is single):  48%
Median singles salary: $50,457
Average movie ticket: $10.70
Well-being score (Gallup): 69.7

Paul Sakuma / AP Photo

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Single men: 60%
Single women: 61%
Median singles salary: $34,736
Average movie ticket: $10.02
Well-being score: 65.8

iStockphoto

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Single men: 62%
Single women: 60%
Median singles salary: $31,655
Average movie ticket: $9.41
Well-being score: 67.3

Win McNamee / Getty Images

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Single men: 53%
Single women: 54%
Median singles salary: $35,170
Average movie ticket: $9.43
Well-being score: 66.7

Aaron M. Sprecher, Bloomberg / Getty Images

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Single men: 53%
Single women: 59%
Median singles salary: $66,971
Average movie ticket: $11.03
Well-being score: 69.8

Getty Images

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Single men: 55%
Single women: 55%
Median singles salary: $30,727
Average movie ticket: $8.37
Well-being score: 66.9

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Single men: 55%
Single women: 56%
Median singles salary: $35,641
Average movie ticket: $9.14
Well-being score: 67.3

Flickr

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Single men: 68%
Single women: 70%
Median singles salary: $24,117
Average movie ticket: $9.51
Well-being score: 67.2

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Single men: 54%
Single women: 57%
Median singles salary: $39,011
Average movie ticket: $7.66
Well-being score: 68.7

Don Klumpp / Getty Images

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Single men: 41%
Single women: 42%
Median singles salary: $55,114
Average movie ticket: $10.43
Well-being score: 69.2

Feng Wei / Getty Images

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Single men: 55%
Single women: 55%
Median singles salary: $46,335
Average movie ticket: $11.26
Well-being score: 68.7

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Single men: 54%
Single women: 54%
Median singles salary: $34,800
Average movie ticket: $9.62
Well-being score: 67

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Single men: 69%
Single women: 71%
Median singles salary: $30,070
Average movie ticket: $9.83
Well-being score: 66.9

Wayne Scarberry / AP Photo

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Single men: 67%
Single women: 70%
Median singles salary: $41,493
Average movie ticket: $11.03
Well-being score: 68.9

JOHN TLUMACKI

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Single men: 58%
Single women: 59%
Median singles salary: $35,834
Average movie ticket: $10.25
Well-being score: 68.1

Corbis

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Single men: 69%
Single women: 74%
Median singles salary: $51,948
Average movie ticket: $11.03
Well-being score: 69.9

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo

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Single men: 61%
Single women: 61%
Median singles salary: $58,887
Average movie ticket: $10.70
Well-being score: 69.1

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Single men: 58%
Single women: 61%
Median singles salary: $35,128
Average movie ticket: $9.46
Well-being score: 70.8

Flickr

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Single men: 59%
Single women: 60%
Median singles salary: $44,179
Average movie ticket: $10.43
Well-being score: 69.2

iStockphoto

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Single men: 65%
Single women: 66%
Median singles salary: $36,030
Average movie ticket: $9.42
Well-being score: 69

AP Photo

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Single men: 57%
Single women: 57%
Median singles salary: $38,457
Average movie ticket: $9.58
Well-being score: 69.8

iStockphoto

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Single men: 51%
Single women: 51%
Median singles salary: $28,021
Average movie ticket: $9.00
Well-being score: 72.8

John Coletti / Getty Images

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Single men: 73%
Single women: 75%
Median singles salary: $20,863
Average movie ticket: $8.86
Well-being score: 70.3

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Single men: 69%
Single women: 71%
Median singles salary: $38,174
Average movie ticket: $10.52
Well-being score: 67.7

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