If you’re reading this, you likely live in Idaho and you’re feeling a little bit lonely. 

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We’ve been there before. About 13 years ago, we moved to Boise fresh out of college for our first full-time radio job. The move took us 2,100 miles away from where we grew up and we didn’t know a soul other than the folks we were going to work with. Heck, we barely knew them. It took a long time before we made genuine connections and had real friends. 

Even if you have great friends, something about the cold winter temperatures and short days just breeds some feelings of loneliness. But does living in Boise make it worse? 

The Top 30 Loneliest Cities in the Country Revealed

ChamberOfCommerce.org recently put together a list of the 30 Loneliest Cities in America. In order to do so, they analyzed over 170 cities with a population of at least 150,000. The data they pulled was from the American Census Bureau’s 2017-2022 American Community Survey. Using that five-year survey and a cut-off of 150,000, Boise would’ve been the only city in Idaho they could have considered putting on their list. 

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And being on their list isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This sort of “loneliness” doesn’t have anything to do with feelings. They simply looked at the percentage of households in each city that were one-person households. In other words, the number of people who live alone. 

Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash
Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash
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When all the numbers were crunched Washington D.C. was named the “loneliest city in the country,” with 48.6% of householders living alone. With 31% of householders living alone in Boise, we didn’t make the list. Kansas City was the final city on the list with 39.2% of householders living alone. 

As for cities that are sort of in our region, Seattle was #13 at 40% and Denver was #24 at 38.9%. 

Idaho’s Top 10 Loneliest Cities

The data Chamber of Commerce pulled isn’t hard to find, so we thought it’d be interesting to look up the same information for cities in Idaho so we pulled that information for the 33 largest cities in Idaho. 

Being on this list isn’t a cutdown. If anything, it says you’re financially able to support yourself and live on your own. That’s something to be proud of. And sometimes living with other people, whether it be a spouse, roommate, kids or parents, can be stressful. (We know there are certainly days when we miss being single and having our own space.) 

 Here’s how the data shook out.

The Top 10 Loneliest Cities in the State of Idaho in 2024

The following information was gathered from the United States Census Bureau.

Gallery Credit: Michelle Heart

KEEP READING: The 10 Best Boise Neighborhoods to Raise a Family In 2024

Niche.com applied their methodology to over 30 neighborhoods in the City of Boise. After grading neighborhoods on quality of schools, safety, access to family amenities and other factors, they determined these are the 10 neighborhoods where you'd love to raise a family in Boise.

Boise's Out of Control Apartment Prices Send Residents Fleeing to These 11 Cities

Apartment List saw the most outbound searches from Boise targeting these 11 cities. Rental price data is from Apartment List, Apartments.com or Niche.com. Median income figures are from the United States Census Bureau.

Gallery Credit: Michelle Heart

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