#55: Who's Your City?

Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life, 

by Richard Florida (New York: Basic Books, 2008)

 Summary:
"It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where you live doesn’t matter: you can telecommute to your high-tech Silicon Valley job, a ski-slope in Idaho, a beach in Hawaii or a loft in Chicago; you can innovate from Shanghai or Bangalore.

"According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Place is not only important, it’s more important than ever.

"Globalization is not flattening the world; on the contrary, the world is spiky. Place is becoming more relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. The choice of where to live, therefore, is not an arbitrary one. It is arguably the most important decision we make, as important as choosing a spouse or a career. In fact, place exerts powerful influence over the jobs and careers we have access to, the people meet and our 'mating markets' and our ability to lead happy and fulfilled lives.

"Who’s Your City? provides the first ever-rankings of cities by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, young families and empty-nesters. And it grounds its new ideas and data to provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans and over 4 million Canadians who move each year. The book shows readers how to choose where to live, and what those choices mean for their lives, happiness and communities."

Table of Contents:

• 1. The Question of Where

Part I: Why Place Matters

• 2. Spiky World
• 3. Rise of the Mega-Region
• 4. The Clustering Force

Part II: The Wealth of Place

• 5. The Mobile and the Rooted
• 6. Where the Brains Are
• 7. Job-Shift
• 8. Superstar Cities

Part III: The Geography of Happiness

• 9. Shiny Happy Places
• 10. Beyond Maslow's City
• 11. Cities Have Personalities, Too

Part IV: Where We Live Now

• 12. Three Big Moves
• 13. The Young and the Restless
• 14. Married With Children
• 15. When the Kids Are Gone

• 16. Place Yourself

My Take: 
Interesting to think about. Wish I'd read this closer to when I read The World Is Flat, or perhaps in a book group that was reading both, so I could sink my teeth into Florida's and Friedman's competing ideas more deeply.