Do you live in a hotbed of romance, or are you stuck in one of the least romantic cities in the country? A recent survey conducted by Amazon.com ranks the most romantic cities in the U.S. (using pretty dubious methodology) and the results may surprise you.
To determine which cities rank among the most romantic in the U.S., Amazon took a look at the sales data for romantic products purchased in cities with more than 100,000 residents. What classifies as a “romantic product?” According to Yahoo! Finance, romance novels and relationship books, rom coms, romantic music from the likes of Dean Martin, Barry White, and so on, and sexual wellness items. Don't these sound like the products that someone who is looking for romance rather than someone who is actively engaged in romance might purchase, though? Isn't "relationship books" a euphemism for titles like The Complete Idiot's Guide to Finding Mr. Right ? Anyway, Stacy Keller, a spokeswoman for Amazon, elaborated on how they interpreted the data once it was gathered:
“We measured sales by units of romantic comedies, albums, and romance books and pulled it together to create a complete list of the biggest purchasers by unit. We applied that data per capita for each city to determine which cities were the biggest purchasers of romantic titles.”
This explains how smaller cities were able to climb the list (who knew Spokane, WA was so romantic?). Hilariously, New York City was determined to be one of the least romantic cities in the country; Time speculates that it had something to do with the mysteriously high amount of purchases of music from Korn and Slayer. At least it’s not as bad as Boise, ID, which earned the dubious title of Least Romantic City in America. Sorry, Boise.
For the curious, here’s the full top 20 list:
1. San Antonio, TX
2. Seattle, WA
3. Knoxville, TN
4. Miami, FL
5. Alexandria, VA
6. Orlando, FL
7. Vancouver, WA
8. Cincinnati, OH
9. Spokane, WA
10. Dayton, OH
11. Columbia, SS
12. San Jose, CA
13. Murfreesboro, TN
14. Round Rock, TX
15. Sioux Falls, SD
16. Las Vegas, NV
17. Pittsburgh, PA
18. Everett, WA
19. Erie, PA
20. Clearwater, FL
Image: Fotolia
