Tag Archives: urban singles

More Americans live in a single-person household in cities

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With reports this week that 29% of American households include just one person, where are more of these single-person households located?

Photo by Timur Saglambilek on Pexels.com

Living alone is much more common in large cities. Singles now make up more than 40 percent of households in Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Denver, according to a paper by the British historian Keith Snell. Half of all Manhattan dwellings are one-person residences. Snell identified a Midtown Census tract where 94 percent of households comprised a single person. 

There are likely a lot of factors influencing these numbers in cities. This includes available jobs and economic conditions, family formation processes, cultural and entertainment opportunities, and housing options.

There are also old American narratives about where families live. How about the story about young people in the big city forming families or households, having kids, and then leaving for the suburbs? Do cities provide more opportunities for people in single-person households?

It would be interesting to see the variation in single-person households within and across American cities. Certain cities are listed above at over 40% and certain Manhattan neighborhoods are cited. Does this also mean the numbers are quite different in other New York City neighborhoods or in other American big cities?

Claim: end of urban friends TV shows, revival of happy suburban McMansion shows

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With the end of “How I Met Your Mother,” one critic argues TV shows have moved on to happy suburban McMansions and darker shows about urban singles:

The series is among the last of a vanishing breed, the romantic comedy about well-educated, pop culturally attuned young white people trying to find love and sex in the city as they embark on their careers and independent lives. Such sitcoms proliferated after “Friends” became a huge hit for NBC in the 1990s.

But since ABC struck gold with “Modern Family,” networks have traded the urban coffee shops and bars for the suburban McMansion. TV comedies that explore the dating lives of young people now tend to be a lot darker than “How I Met Your Mother.” Take, for instance, HBO’s “Girls,” where the sex is graphic — and often soul-crushing for the characters.

Such a claim might sound true – but where is the data to back this up? Later in the article:

But that distinctive [storytelling] approach may have come at a price. “It’s that kind of innovation that never makes it to huge ratings heights of the good, old-fashioned sitcom,” Thompson said. “They’re very post-modern characters, so steeped in the irony and cynicism of the ’90s they grew up in, that sometimes it’s kind of hard to like them.”

Indeed, “HIMYM” never cracked even the Top 40 in total viewers, consistently averaging around 9 million or so over the course of its run, according to Nielsen. Yet it still occupied an important role for CBS, which is the most-watched network in the U.S. but often has trouble attracting young adults.

So no data on the number of shows with each genre or kind of storyline (young, happy singles vs. suburban McMansion dwelling families vs. unhappy urban singles) and then another knock against HIMYM and “Girls” and similar shows: they often don’t draw big ratings. So, while critics might like these shows (and critics might live in an alternate universe , how many of them are popular? Check out the Nielsen Top 25 for the week ending March 23, 2014: I don’t know all of these shows that well but I don’t see too many suburban McMansions. The suburbs are a common theme on television shows with a long history, dating back to the happy family shows of the 1950s. Yet, they don’t necessarily draw big ratings or the positive attention of critics even if they seem to be fodder for cancellations when the new crop of shows are rolled out each fall.