Who’s Your City?

The always-interesting Richard Florida has a new book out, namely Who’s Your City: How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live The Most Important Decision of Your Life.

The book tells you how to find the city for you (for me it is Los Angeles, but somehow closer to everything else, and with better bookshops) and why the mood of a city matters. 

Is the following true:? The class of city you live in matters less than before, because you can use Amazon or Starbucks in either Manhattan or Chattanooga.  But within a class of city, personality now matters more precisely because people can sort themselves on the basis of personality rather than convenience.

What about me?  I enjoy living in an area which is not totally flat and I also enjoy the feeling that I can drive from one mini-region to another and experience changes; Maryland and DC really do differ from Virginia.  I felt hedged in living in Wellington, New Zealand and in general I don’t like having my back to the water.

Last week Robin Hanson and I discussed which would be the best city to live in if a) all your basic needs were taken care of, and b) you could not otherwise spend any money.  Oxford, even with mediocre weather, seemed like a strong pick.  There is a true intellectual community and everything there costs a lot anyway; not being able to spend any money isn’t so different from the reality.