9-Jul-19 – As the cost to live on Chicago’s North Side continues to increase, the number of wealthy men seeking to spread a little love has as well.

Seeking Arrangement, the world’s largest “Sugar Daddy” dating website, has pulled data from its 20 million members worldwide to determine where sugar daddies live in Chicago. The site claims that the Near North, North, Northwest, and Far North parts of the city are home to more than 1,000 sugar daddies.

In fact, they named Chicago – and specifically the North Side – as the number one locale nationwide for sugar daddies.

Streeterville has 319 sugar daddies, followed by Lincoln Park with 280, Old Irving Park with 181, and Lake View with 163, according to Seeking Arrangement.

A sugar daddy is a wealthy man who will pay for the pleasure of having a girlfriend. Seeking Arrangement defends the practice that some say is a modern-day version of prostitution.

“Is a woman’s preference for financially or socially successful men worse than any other set of criteria for mate selection?” the website asks.

“It appears not. For example, it seems arbitrary to think negatively of women being attracted to social status while being comfortable with men being attracted to physical beauty.”

Well, perhaps they have a point. But why Chicago?

One possibility is that the Windy City is home to 33 of the largest companies in the United States. Corporate headquarters in and around Chicago include Allstate, Boeing, McDonald’s, Motorola Solutions – and Walgreens, the largest of the large with over $131 billion in revenue in 2018.

Seeking Arrangement says 42 percent of its members seeking arrangements are college students, including one million women in the United States, suggesting women are turning to sugar daddies for help with college debt. It is a trend noted by The Atlantic magazine in its 2015 article, Where the Sugar Babies Are.

“Statistics aside, the fact that this path has become increasingly popular among so many young women is a damning indictment of the country’s higher education system,” wrote The Atlantic.

This is something of which Seeking Arrangement appears to be aware. Its marketing has expanded in the past few years to specifically attract more students. For example, with proof of college enrollment, membership on the site is free.

According to Seeking Arrangement, besides Chicago, the top sugar daddy cities in the U.S. are New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Phoenix.