I'll be moving to San Francisco

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m reading Richard Florida’s new book, Who’s your City, which explores the forces behind why people select and stay in certain cities over other.

Apparently there are strong psychological characteristics to certain cities and this can actually be mapped using location quotients (see the personality maps here). Florida examines the work of Rentfrow, another geographer, who mapped 600,000 survey respondents across five major personality dimensions to find personality clusters in the US. Rentfrow found that:

Type of Region	What Florida Says	Who should live there	Cities
Outgoing Region	High in extroversion, low in neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness, and very low in agreeableness.	People who are outgoing and social, who like group activities and functions, who play team sports, and like to be around other people. Unlikely to appeal to people who prefer very close ties or community involvement or to those who constantly need multiple options or enjoy trying new things.	Chicago, Minneapolis, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Orlando, West Palm Beach.
Dutiful Regions	High on agreeableness and conscientiousness as well as extroversion, low in openness and neuroticism.	People who are hard working, friendly, trusting, helpful, and compassionate. Perfect for model citizens. Places for people who want to fit in and are more conventional or traditional in their outlooks and values; those who value the status quo and typically don’t step out of line. Poor fit for those who are artistic or creative and constantly need to be trying out new and different things.	Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Memphis, Nashville (Nash-vul), Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami, Indianapolis, and Portland, Oregon.
Experiential Regions	High on openness and neuroticism, low in conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness.	People who do not need to be around other people, who question authority, and who quest after intense experiences (intellectually, creatively, emotionally, physiologically). Good fit for people who are creative but perhaps also lost in their own world, socially isolated, aloof, cantankerous, or who thrive on stress. Poor fit for people who like to meet new people and make friends easily, have conventional values, are status quo oriented, and prefer to work in stable jobs and on standard tasks.	New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington DC, Denver, Austin, Dallas, Las Vegas, Buffalo, New Orleans, Louisville.

I’m fascinated by this stuff. I guess this is why we can travel to a place and it just speaks to us on a deeper, more profound level.

Developing homegrown competency

I'm reading a terrific book this week. Who's Your City by Richard Florida explores one of life's three major choices, 'where to live?' (the other's being 'what to do' and 'who to do it with').

Despite the ease with which technology has allowed us to interact with each other over vast distances, we still love to congregate. Actually, it still makes sense to congregate. Theoretically, this is intuitive: concentration of talented and creative individuals leads to increase innovation which leads to happiness and wealth creation.

Florida affirms that the world is not getting flatter with technological diffusion and communications convergence. Rather, it is getting 'spikier' - a term he uses to describe the peaks and valleys of the world economy and the highly localized nature of very specialized jobs (e.g. computer game design, equity management services, and publishing).

But what makes creative people want to locate in proximity to one another? Are there unique physical features of the place that make it attractive to certain types of people or are these characteristics incidental and secondary to selecting a place with people in your social group.

So is it chicken or egg? Do creative people create creative cities or do creative cities create creative people?

Comments are welcomed and encouraged.