Richard Florida offers us a useful map of the United States, showing metropolitan areas where one gender outnumbers the other by a significant margin (the graphic is better on his blog).
While the map could certainly help predict and describe the singles scene in your hometown, it can also inform your marketing and audience development strategies, and the way you connect with the larger challenges of your community. Says Florida:
The ability to attract young singles also bodes well for regional economies. Singles are a large and growing segment of the population and the workforce. With many postponing marriage until their late 20s and 30s, and with a significant share of marriages ending in divorce, singles now make up more than half of all American households, compared with just 20 percent or so in the 1960s and 1970s.
So, are your programs and promotions resonant with the social mix of your particular market? Do you know what the social (and ethnic, and economic, and educational) mix of your market actually is? If not, go find out!
Whoever said, “Go West Young Man”, better send them east.