Recently, one of our co-workers had a meltdown over Valentine’s Day. In the past few months, he’s been struck by Cupid’s arrow. Like many people around the country, he was worried about making February 14th a special day for his, um, special lady. His complaint was that San Francisco, home to your favorite novelty real estate bloggers, just wasn’t romantic enough.
Most of us immediately called foul. San Francisco is indeed one of the most romantic cities in the country. In fact, we were so peeved by our co-workers utterance, we set out to prove him wrong by figuring out which cities really were the least romantic in the country. What did we find?
The 10 Least Romantic Cities in the United States
- Houston, TX
- New York City, NY
- Columbus, OH
- Baltimore, MD
- El Paso, TX
- Detroit, MI
- Louisville, KY
- Memphis, TN
- Indianapolis, IN
These 10 cities top our list of least romantic cities in the country, while San Francisco proved to be one the most romantic cities. Take that, unromantic co-worker!
How did we come up with our list? With research, of course.
Are You Ready for Date Night?
To form our list of the least romantic cities, we first needed to create a metric with which to judge each cosmo. To do this we relied on Rom-Coms and what our moms told us about dating when we entered high school. In other words, we assumed a successful Valentine’s Day would include:
- A walk in the park
- A bouquet of flowers
- A box of chocolate
- A romantic meal
In addition, we wanted a warmer temperature in order to take a stroll outside, so weather became a factor.
Once we had an idea of what in our minds was necessary for a successful Valentine’s Day, we turned each item on our list into a measurable criterion. Our list looked at each of these factors by city:
- Park space
- Florists
- Specialty chocolate stores
- Romantic restaurants
- Average temperature
To come up with our ranking, we first estimated the number of establishments and parks per person in the country’s 30 most populous cities. We then ranked these cities based on each criterion. The final score is an average of how the cities ranked in our five criteria.
After we crunched the numbers, we found that Indianapolis ranked as the least romantic city. Why? Well, not only is Indianapolis cold in the winter with average temperature of 29.6 degrees, the city consistently ranked near the bottom of our criteria. It wasn’t rocket science. There’s just not a lot going on in the city.
Below is why and how we picked our criteria.
I Ache-reage for You!
Via Flickr user WanderingtheWorld.
Why’d we pick parks? Few things are as romantic as taking a walk hand-in-hand through gorgeous scenery. Taking a walk lets you and your boo talk without the bump and grind of clubs or awkward background music.
How’d we calculate each city’s park space? We relied on one of our favorite standbys—ParkScore. The not-for-profit website ranks parks in the country’s 40 largest cities. If you’re familiar with WalkScore, then you’ve pretty much got the concept. Along with a score, the website also provides details about each city’s park system. In this case, it was a snap to figure out how much park space each city holds.
Of course, no one wants to amble through a park in sub-Arctic temperatures.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
It shouldn’t be surprising that cities on the West Coast had a distinct advantage in this category. To create our weather ranking, we calculated the average temperature for the month of February in each of our cities.
Los Angeles came in as the warmest city with an average temperature of 60.1 degrees Fahrenheit, while Milwaukee was dead last with an average temperature of 23 degrees.
Let Your Love Blossom
Whether you’re buying for your husband, wife, or significant other, flowers on Valentine’s Day are a mainstay. Not only do these bundles of flora brighten up the house and give off a pleasant scent, with a little TLC they’ll last for a few days—and remind your partner he or she is special.
To figure out the number of florists in each city, we relied on Yelp. This gave us a rough idea for the number of flower peddlers per person in each city. Boston topped our list of most florists per person, while Jacksonville came in dead last.
Specialty Chocolate Shops
Via Flickr user J. Paxton Reyes.
Those heart-shaped boxes filled with chocolate are great, but when you’re really trying to impress your sweetie, you need to pull out the big guns. In this instance the big guns are specialty chocolate shops. Are they more expensive? Absolutely. Is it worth it? In our opinion, there’s no question.
According to our data, San Francisco took the top spot for the most specialty chocolate establishments per person (score one for the home team.) El Paso fell at the opposite end of the spectrum.
As with the number of florists in each area, we again used Yelp to find the best artisan chocolate stores in each city.
Romantic Restaurants
Why romantic restaurants? As our one of our bloggers put it, “You don’t want to take your date to a not-so-classy, cheesy restaurant.” In other words, if Valentine’s Day is about showing your love for someone else, you want to make sure to impress. Dinner at TGI Fridays won’t cut it (unless there’s some quirky story about how you met there).
To come up with this ranking, we again relied on Yelp to track down romantic restaurants in each city. There were varying reviews for some establishments, so in this case, we went with any restaurant a reviewer believed was romantic.
San Francisco took the top spot for most romantic restaurants per city–proving our point that our co-worker was just being lazy–while El Paso bottomed out the list.
Poor Indianapolis
So, if you’re like our co-worker complaining that you can’t find something to do for Valentine’s Day, take a deep breath and consider what it would be like to live in a frigid city where your chances of finding chocolate and flowers are miniscule. And if you live in one of these cities, you could just move to San Francisco.
How Did Your City Rank?
- Indianapolis, IN
- Memphis, TN
- Louisville, KY
- Detroit, Mi
- El Paso, TX
- Baltimore, MD
- Chicago, IL
- Columbus, OH
- New York City, NY
- Houston, TX
- Fort Worth, TX
- San Antonio, TX
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Jacksonville, FL
- Nashville, TN
- Milwaukee, WI
- Charlotte, NC
- Philadelphia, PA
- Dallas, TX
- Denver, CO
- Austin, TX
- Boston, MA
- Washington, DC
- Los Angeles, CA
- Phoenix, AZ
- Seattle, WA
- San Jose, CA
- San Francisco, CA
- San Diego, CA
- Portland, OR
The Movoto blog is a service of Movoto Real Estate. If you’re looking for a new home, keep us in mind. We have up-to-date real estate listings and local agents throughout the country. When you want to take a break from browsing homes, you can keep coming back to read awesome blog posts like this one.
