Richard Florida

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.… (meer)

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.… (meer)