NYU professor says more are living singly, for better or worse

What if society were changing, really rapidly, and no one noticed?

Perhaps some glimpsed it here and there, but thought it was just something in the family. Or something a friend or two did. But no one ever put it all together.

Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at New York University, says that's exactly what's happening.

"More and more people are opting to live by themselves than ever before in our society," he says. "It's a global phenomenon, and in this country it's happened in the last 60 years, and we're not talking about it much."

Klinenberg's new book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone (Penguin Press, $27.95), looks at singlehood in all its many colors. He'll be speaking at a noontime colloquium at Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania on Friday.

In 1950, 22 percent of U.S. adults were unmarried, and four million, or 9 percent of all households, were living singly. As of 2010 (the latest year available), more than half of all adults were single, and 31 million, or about 28 percent of all households, were living by themselves. (That latter number leaves out the eight million in assisted living, nursing homes, or prisons.)

A color-coded "living-alone map" of Philadelphia - showing the proportion of nonfamily households - displays a rich band of singles in Center City, about a mile square from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill, and also, as you might expect, in West Philadelphia, near the universities. The town is richly strewed with pockets that are 10 to 15 percent solo.

Some are single by choice and others by chance, and it's not always happy. Many would echo Mary Shedlock of Wallingford, who lost her husband at 54: "I think the 'used to it' part will be a long time in coming for me."

The growing singles sector shows "resourcefulness and originality," Klinenberg says, "in creating rich, diverse social networks that function as family, as support, as safety." Most singles are not isolated couch-sitters. Millions are engaged, committed citizens.