Cheesesteaks, brotherly love and the Eagles are some of the things most people associate with Philadelphia, but they can now add "unattractive" to the list.
Philadelphia was named the city with the least attractive people in the country earlier this month by an open, online survey.
Travel + Leisure magazine and CNN Headline News conducted their annual "America's Favorite Cities" poll on their Web sites last spring to find which American city their readers like best.
The poll included 25 cities and let travelers rank them on which qualities they like best and least for each city.
Some Penn State students have their own theories as to why Philadelphia was ranked the least attractive city.
Brian Edling (freshman-information sciences and technology) said he is from Philadelphia and doesn't agree with the survey results, but has an idea as to why his hometown was ranked so low.
"Probably because [Philadelphia is] one of the fattest cities," he said.
Randi Messing (junior-integrative arts) said she knows a lot of people from Philadelphia, and they don't match what the survey has shown.
"I have a lot of friends from Philadelphia and I think they're beautiful," she said.
Maryland native Felicia Olawuni (freshman-pre-medicine) said the habits of Philadelphia's citizens attribute to their unattractiveness and the city's.
"It's totally trashy," Olawuni said.
Lauren Herrold (freshman-business), who lives near Harrisburg, said she has been to Philadelphia many times, but doesn't understand why it earned this ranking.
"It's not a very pretty city in general," Herrold said.
"It's kind of trashy, but I don't know why the people would be [the] least attractive."
Cities were voted on and ranked on 55 different categories from nearly 60,000 respondents, according to a Travel + Leisure press release.
Pittsburgh, the second-largest city in Pennsylvania, was not included in the poll.
The results, which were released in October, also ranked Philadelphia 23rd of the 25 cities in two separate categories: "the overall quality of people" and "active and adventurous vacation destination."
In the style category, Philadelphia almost came in last, just beating out San Antonio.
According to respondents, Philadelphia's best feature was the attractiveness of its historical landmarks and monuments. The city's worst feature out of the 55 categories, according to respondents, was its safety.
According to a press release, the survey was conducted online at travelandleisure.com and cnn.com from April 30 to July 15. Participants rated their choices of one or more cities in the 55 categories and were also asked if they were residents of the city or cities they rated. Philadelphia was followed by Washington, D.C. and Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas, who were determined to have the second and third-least attractive residents, respectively. The survey results listed Miami, Fla., San Diego, Calif., and Portland, Ore., as the top three most attractive cities.
