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Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Florida
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $16.19
You Save: $10.76 (40%)
New (17) Used (9) from $15.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 2771
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0465003524
Dewey Decimal Number: 304.23
EAN: 9780465003525
ASIN: 0465003524
Publication Date: March 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling books online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080501221712T
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Product Description
It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where we live doesn’t matter. We can innovate just as easily from a ski chalet in Aspen or a beachhouse in Provence as in the office of a Silicon Valley startup.
According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Globalization is not flattening the world; in fact, place is increasingly relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. Where we live determines the jobs and careers we have access to, the people we meet, and the “mating markets” in which we participate. And everything we think we know about cities and their economic roles is up for grabs.
Who’s Your City? offers the first available city rankings by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, families, and empty-nesters to reside. Florida’s insights and data provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans who move each year, illuminating everything from what those choices mean for our everyday lives to how we should go about making them.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Very simplistic; however, April 28, 2008
1 out of 10 found this review helpful
The author's view of society (that there are only a few classes, married/divorced, young and single, and gay) is very simplistic. In other words, if you fit into the above categories, this review is not meant for your demographic.
I am informing a very small but ignored demographic - middle-aged (45 plus) single women, never married and no children to circumstances beyond their control. My case was direct caregiver to elderly parents for 20 plus years which prevented marriage and a family. Non-traditional single women as I will refer to this demographic. I will use my current city Nashville, TN as the example.
Talking to non-traditional single women like myself who visit here and ask me about living here and noticed the negative attitude from people -I assure them that they are not misconstruing what your common sense and subconscious is telling you. Once you are asked your marital status(how many times married) and whether you have any children - you are treated rudely when not ignored. Yes, the politicians do promote this negative attitude as well. Crime is high for our demographic because police usually will not take a report from this demographic. If you do protect yourself, you as the non-traditional single woman, will be prosecuted (both socially and literally) instead of your attacker.
Nashville society loves young people who like to party, married/divorced with/without children with like to party, non-married with children who like to party, and/or gays with/without children who like to party and is very, very conservative. Nashville does have a large music presence. The author feels that if a city has a high art(ists) presence then the city promotes freedom and tolerance of everyone. Not true.
Nashville does have a large swinger demographic for the young, divorced and married couples. You can go to any swinger website (straight or gay) and will be able to find Nashville 'listed' near the top as a place to visit/live. There is one positive for gay males looking to relocate here - large gay male demographic. Gay males do have to marry, have kids and practice their orientation privately. The above demographics feel the need to keep their dirty little secret of their lifestyle for whatever reasons. Thus, the promotion of family values here. There are very few heterosexual middle-aged men to date in Nashville for non-traditional single women our age and these men only want to date the young girls. My opinion, people here are just plain bores. No intellect.
Example of my demographic: I do have a high security clearance at my employer (thus the reason I can not use my real name because I will be terminated for speaking out) and cannot date any of the heterosexual or so called 'heterosexual' men in Nashville because they are convicted felons and/or have backgrounds that my employer forbids me to associate with. If and when I dated before my present employer, I discovered these 'heterosexal' men were awful actors. Our demographic does at least get the time to observe since we are ignored, especially on a date. Just watch where their eyes go when another man passes by. No, they are not checking out the `babe' the guy is with. Just keep watching and see who eyes meet and connect.
The reason for my rating is for women in my demographic is that the information is presented in one source, portable, and can be used to rate the real attitude of any city listed. Just remember the author has a very simplistic view of society and its components. Go visit and observe. Your common sense and subconscious can and should be trusted in your interactions in that city. If there is an uncomfortable feeling, then there is a good reason that this feeling persists even after you have left that particular city.
Humor is the most important trait to have living in Nashville and hope when you are able to leave Nashville (my case in about four more years). Nashville is a complete wasteland as far as a non-traditional single woman demographic is concerned. Use Appendix E to rate your city and others.
My rating out of 100 - 29 for Nashville.
 Nearly There April 24, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
While I enjoyed Richard Florida's book I feel there was one component missing, and it bothered me throughout the book. He is coming from an academic background in his approach and by doing so misses out on a very obvious argument. Maybe it was so obvious he didn't feel it was worth mentioning but he underestimates the power of the city to be an educator in the sense that the experience of being involved in a new city, going through the process of relocating there, making new friends is unbelievably important in a person's personal growth and experiential education.
Human Geography Mapping April 10, 2008
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
The broader topic of this book is Human Geography - the how and why behind peoples' movement and why they tend to cluster around specific geographic regions. The author describes several 'mega-regions' that hold a majority of the worlds' population, power, light, scientific advances, etc. Several maps are included that show the distribution of income, singles, jobs, etc. and they make for interesting viewing, but don't hold any surprises. I suppose that was the biggest disappointment in this book - there are no surprises here and the maps and information come together exactly as you'd expect - the highest incomes, most scientists and creative people, etc. in the USA are in the most populated places and the most populated places are the two coasts. There is a heavy reliance upon statistics in this book, which was nice, but I wish the author had focused less on statistics and more on globalization and what might happen in the future to US cities. He does make mention of globalization and how it will force job clusters to cluster even more, but he didn't reference the subject much. The author makes the case that co-location (of people and specific industries) is beneficial, despite the fact that it ends up raising prices of homes and services for the average person. For instance, the Silicon Valley is known for its computing industry so the author states that up-n-coming computer companies will benefit by locating to the Silicon Valley to take advantage of services and amenities already in place. This is obviously true, but when others move into the area they cannot afford the high prices and costs associated with these areas. The author does attempt to answer the question of why people pay such a premium to live in places like the Silicon Valley, but it's still a puzzlement overall. There are several appendices in the book, which list the best places for singles, professionals, older adults, and retirees, but the lists are, again, very similar to anything else you'd see elsewhere. There is no consideration given to affordability of the regions (the author ranked San Francisco #1 for retirees - ummm... NOT at all possible on a fixed income and in a city with few senior services!). That was the other failing of this book - it seems to only consider the needs and abilities of people with means and money; it wasn't written for average workers and families, but for the people who are 'wanna-bes' in their fields and willing to follow trends. Anyway, you have to take the data with a grain of salt and look at it from a much broader perspective - look at the world picture and notice that several areas are surging ahead while others are seemingly being left behind. This is definitely a topic in need of further investigation and insight. The book, unfortunately, will not tell you where to live, but it might open your eyes to some areas that are burgeoning with opportunity. There is actually a very helpful chart in the back of the book (the Place Finder) to help focus your search and look for specific things in the place(s) you're considering. The one piece of advice the author gave that I wholeheartedly agree with: VISIT the place you want to move to and, regardless of statistics or perceived desirability by others, if it doesn't feel right to you forget it.
 Understand your place April 2, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
One of the most important decisions anyone makes is where to live. What Richard shows is that this decision not only affects people, but it changes places, markets and governments. This books helps us understand how we live today....
bill bishop
austin, tx
An interesting new book by Florida April 2, 2008
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
I work as a local politician in a community where we are planning an accelerated growth. I don't agree with the ideas of the majority.
I find mr Floridas ideas helpful when arguing.
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