One of the advantages of being a nomad or a location independent professional is that this lifestyle provides you with the opportunity to choose where you live. As a nomad, you are no longer tied to big cities or locations where your potential clients are likely to live, or where potential jobs are likely to be found.

So how do you choose where to call home when you are on the road?

Public Art Outside of Toronto's Hockey Hall of Fame

A lot of the time, the decision on where to go is based on the physical attributes of the city – how accessible and reliable connecting to the Internet is; what are the housing options; is there easy access to efficient and cheap public transport; does the city provide you with the leisure activities you are looking for (museums, art galleries, shopping) etc.

Recently, however, academic Richard Florida introduced a new perspective on deciding where to live. In his recently published book Who’s Your City?, Richard Florida talks about the personality of cities – how each city has a unique ‘personality’ that can either energize creative individuals, or can suck the creativity right out of you. Cities can affect your happiness level, your motivation, your ability to work, and a whole bunch of other psychological, sociological and economic factors.

When you are living a nomadic, location independent lifestyle and are trying to maintain a thriving business while traveling, its nice to settle into a city that energizes you. A city that challenges and expands your creativity and innovativeness, and puts you in touch with other creative and innovative people in a creative and innovative environment. Not only does this type of environment recharge your physical and psychological batteries, it also puts you in contact with people who could potentially be either business partners or clients.

In his book Who’s Your City, Richard Florida identifies 5 basic personality types which, according to psychologists, every individual fits into one of. These 5 personality types are:

1. Individuals who are open to experience. These individuals enjoy new experiences, especially intellectual experiences, the arts, fantasies, and anything that exposes them to new ideas. This type of person is curious, artistic, and creative.
2. Individuals who are conscientious. These individuals work hard, are self-disciplined, responsible, detail-oriented, and strive for achievement.
3. Individuals who are extroverts. These individuals are outgoing, talkative, gregarious, assertive, enthusiastic, seek excitement, enjoy meeting new people, and tend to be emotionally stable.
4. Individuals who are agreeable. They are warm, friendly, compassionate, concerned for the welfare of others, trust other people and expect other people to trust them.
5. Individuals who are neurotic. These individuals are emotionally unstable and are more likely to experience anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, and impulsiveness.

So, do you see yourself in that lot?

Richard Florida’s point is that cities also have these five basic personality types. When you find a city that is compatible with your personality type, you experience increased levels of energy, happiness, creativity, motivation, etc.

Richard Florida's Personality Maps of US Cities

When you find yourself living in a city that is not compatible with your personality type, you begin to experience negative feelings, negative energy levels, are prone to depression, etc. Part of Richard Florida’s studies have included mapping these personalities onto cities across North America, showing clusters of cities that share specific personalities.

You probably won’t know beforehand what type of personality the city you are heading to has, this isn’t easy to identify until you are actually living there. From personal experience, I have had a couple of situations where cities I thought I would enjoy living in turned out to be not so psychologically-friendly, despite how beautiful they were and how friendly the local inhabitants were. There was always this feeling of being slightly out of step with everyone else, of somehow not getting the correct meaning of what they were saying or doing, that kind of thing. My energy became so focused on trying to cope with this mis-match of personalities that there was little left over for the things I needed to do, like work. Based on the case studies Richard Florida includes in his book, this seems to be a fairly typical reaction to a person/city personality clash.

So, if you try settling into a new city (or town, or rural area) and you begin to feel agitated or depressed, have low levels of energy and motivation (I know this is beginning to sound like an ad for some kind of ‘energy-boost drink’), find yourself easily angered, then perhaps you are having a personality clash with the city you are living in.

TTFN

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