Atlanta ranked top city for singles

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - If you're single and looking for a mate, Atlanta could be the place to live.

The southern U.S. city displaced San Francisco for the top spot and edged past Dallas, Minneapolis and Washington D.C. to be voted the No. 1 city for singles, according to Forbes.com.

"Atlanta got the top spot because of its hopping nightlife, relatively high number of singles and sizzling job growth," Michael Noer, the executive editor of Forbes.com (www.forbes.com) said in a statement.

It was the first time Atlanta was ranked No. 1 in the annual poll that assessed 40 of the largest U.S. urban areas for coolness, cost of living alone, culture, job growth, online dating, nightlife and number of singles.

Seattle, Boston, New York City, Orlando and Phoenix completed the top 10 places in the survey. Jacksonville, Florida, Salt Lake City and Cleveland, were ranked at the bottom of the list of desirable cities for the nation's 74 million single adults.

Chicago was ranked 11th, Miami placed 13th, Los Angeles dropped from third place to 16th this year, and Las Vegas came in 24th in the poll.

Each urban area was assigned a ranking of one to 40 in each of the seven categories. Coolness was gauged by a poll of adults across the country, while rent, the price of move tickets and a six-pack of beer were used to determine cost of living.

Museums, sports facilities and concert venues per capita were assessed to determine culture, while nightlife was based on the number of restaurants, bars and nightclubs in each urban area.

"To those who know 'Hotlanta,' the ranking should come as no surprise," Forbes.com said in a statement, adding the city had been the top 10 in seven of the eight yearly surveys it has conducted.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; editing by Matthew Jones)