Yesterday I found on facebook an interesting ad, directing you to “Who’s your City†maps by Richard Florida. This particular facebook ad was targeted to singles, showing maps of U.S.A. states with more singles according to different genders. You can also check the extravert (we know from the Big 5 personality traits,that the correct word is extravert :-)) maps or the 10 top cities to live if you are gay or lesbian. You can find maps for every taste or purpose, namely superstar cities, real estate or the income map: http://creativeclass.com/whos_your_city/maps/.
So, if you’re thinking of moving, better think again and assess this. Although the majority of maps are from U.S., there is also available mega-regions in Europe and Asia.
But, besides this funny note, the book and Florida’s research has definitely more juice. In spite of the globalization and this idea that where you live does not matter, because of the wide scope of ICTs, Richard shows that place it’s more important than ever. Nevertheless, this is not a new idea, numerous researchers have been emphasizing that place is fundamental. Even in the cyberspace, a space with no boundaries, place is crucial, as it gives an identity to, a sense of delimitation. There is why the urban metaphor, the city, agora, square and so on have been successfully used on the WWW. And this we could clearly observe in our digital cities study. It’s the so called digital paradox: where physical is essential.