This book is the ultimate guide for anyone who is thinking about relocating - for whatever reasons. Several of it's chapters are very enlightening and the eventual "guide" in the last chapter gives you a good structure to work through your options of places you'd like to live.

The only thing I found a bit disappointing is that the book focuses mainly on the US, despite the growing globalization. But the general advise can be converted to any country or city in the world.

What the book also lacked for me was a chapter for "childless couples" - what is the best place for them?! The one for singles? Empty-Nesters?! Disappointing... I skipped all the stuff about singles and families, so I can't speak for that.

But as mentioned, if you're thinking about relocating, read this first. ( )

I can barely claim to have read this book, since I skimmed the first two parts pretty mercilessly, slowed down a bit in the third part and then read a couple of the chapters in the fourth part properly. The trouble is that so much of the early parts of the book are just about laying out the empirical evidence of something that seems pretty obvious - place is important, certain types of economic activity take place in certain locations.

Part III is entitled "The Geography of Happiness" and despite the fact that I don't approve of the notion of "happiness" as it's defined in a lot of positive psychology and development economics, this section is where some new ideas emerge. The notion that cities have personalities is interesting, and the fact that the authors find evidence that people are happier when they live in places that match their personality is important if the reader is to take the self-help section of the book seriously.

Part IV offers some suggestions for people trying to decide where to live, and I found this very helpful. In the Australian context things are a bit simpler than they are in the US, since there are relatively few options when it comes to major cities, but nevertheless the criteria outlined are interesting and the process Richard Florida recommends is nicely set out.

If you think where you live might be making you unhappy, this book offers a way of deciding if it really is and a plan of action for deciding where you might want to go. ( )

I read an article in the Atlantic by this author who mentioned this book and how it argues that place is very important to people. So, I expected it to be a bit more psychological--how a sense of place impacts your well being, how being in the wrong place or right place for you can affect your life, and how to find the right balance. Instead it's a book that brings together different studies and expounds upon statistics. It looks at big trends, but doesn't really go down to a personal level at all. Sure, there are examples of people who found the perfect job in the perfect place and aren't they happy now! But it doesn't really address how to reconcile things when your/your spouse's job takes you to a place that you hate, or what to do if your job has a very niche market and you can't necessarily choose the perfect place to live. The very last chapter of the book was an advice chapter but it again just relied on trends and statistics and didn't provide much help for people dealing with tough decisions.

Also, it's hard to trust a book that repeatedly sings the praises of Austin. ( )

What I learned from this book:

New York City is, statistically, the most neurotic space in the U.S.;

Bakersfield sucks (I already know that, book; thanks all the same);

There's something called the 'Gay/Bohemian Index' that you monied-types want your city to fall into because it means shit is about to get gentrified;

I should probably make every effort to be a goatherd someplace in the Third World (it's really all I'm qualified for with all these creative IT nerds running roughshod over everything and everyone). ( )

I actually didn't finish this book and am returning it to the library. I'm not saying it was a bad book, just not for me -- too many statistics for someone who only took one semester of economics 40 years ago. It's also (if I read aright) not such good news for those of us in small towns who don't want to become part of a megalopolis. This is the guy who was news a while back because he posited that cities with higher proportions of gay people and "bohemians" would be more successful economically. This sounded good when I lived in the Twin Cities, and I would have thought it would be good for Brunswick, Maine as well but he seems to feel that the more crowded you are (as a city) the better. ( )