Birmingham was ranked as the 8th ‘loneliest city in America’ in a recent list published by online business research website Chamber of Commerce- but a local urban policy expert questions the validity of the study.

“Loneliness is a difficult psychological concept to measure,” said Christopher Burks, visiting professor of political science at Samford University and founder of local urban policy consulting firm Urban Analysis.

To compile the list, the Chamber of Commerce analyzed 170 American cities with populations of over 150,000 and used 2021 Census data to determine the percentage of single-person households in each city, according to their webpage. Their ranking was based on an analysis of what percent of males and females live alone in each of these cities. Chamber of Commerce added the two percentages together and then ranked each city from highest to lowest based on that percentage, according to the site.

But there are flaws with using quantitative data to rank something as hard to quantify as loneliness, according to Burks.

Birmingham came in 8th place in Chamber of Commerce’s ranking with just over 39,000 single person households and a combined single male/female percentage of 44.6% (21.9% male, 22.7% female) according to the study. This was less than 1/3 of the amount of single person households in the number one ‘loneliest city’, Washington D.C., which has over 154,000 people living alone with a combined single male/female percentage of 48.2% (21.5% male, 26.7% female) according to the study.