New Report Named This New Hampshire City as One of the Loneliest in America

When I think of being lonely, my mind immediately goes to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

I can't think of a lonelier time in our nation's history, at least in the last few decades. We were stripped of all of our opportunities to see other human beings, and were told to stay in our homes and only interact with our nuclear family.

Though we are currently living in the "new normal", some remnants of the pandemic have lingered, for better or for worse. More people work remotely than ever before. Not commuting to work is awesome, but only seeing your coworkers through a computer screen can get a little lonely (for some).

What makes a place lonely? 

To me, a lonely place means a place where the residents are isolated from one another and don't have a community to lean on.

With that being said, a site called 24/7 Wallst.com named the loneliest city in each state. The site wasn't looking to uncover the cities with the loneliest people, but rather the cities where the highest percentage of residents lived ALONE.

The site gathered data on each city's number of one-person households, how much of the adult population lives alone, and how many people ages 65 and above live by themselves.

Again, we must stress that just because people live alone does not mean they are lonely. All of the folks I know who live alone have thriving social lives, and make more of an effort to keep in touch with friends and family than most married people I know.

24/7wallst.com, named Manchester-Nashua as the loneliest city in New Hampshire.

Okay, a few things. Those are two different cities that are about 20 miles from each other. Neither of them are particularly "lonely". But this the data they found:

• One-person households: 26.3% (44,073 households)
• Adults living alone out of adult civilian pop: 12.8% (#315 out of 385 metros)
• 1-person household 65+ years: 11.3%, or 43.0% of one-person households
• Monthly gross rent: $1,514 (#44 out of 385 metros)
• Bachelor’s degree attainment rate: 40.7% (#68 out of 385 metros)
• Median household income: $96,921 (#14 out of 385 metros)

The main takeaway is that nearly a quarter of the people in Manchester-Nashua live alone, and 43% of those one person households are over 65 years old.

Totally unrelated side note: Rent is extremely reasonable in our fine state compared to the rest of the country. Good for us!