The geography of the American mind

cities, where we live — By Bob Riel on February 24, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Where would you like to live? If you could be guaranteed a reasonable facsimile of your current job, family situation and network of friends anywhere in the country, where would you choose?

The Pew Research Center did an extensive study on where Americans would like to live, and the top three cities were Denver, San Diego and Seattle. Next up were Orlando, Tampa and San Francisco. David Brooks wrote a recent column about this study and described what he saw as America’s geographic state of mind.

If you jumble together the five most popular American metro areas — Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Orlando and Tampa — you get an image of the American Dream circa 2009. These are places where you can imagine yourself with a stuffed garage — filled with skis, kayaks, soccer equipment, hiking boots and boating equipment. These are places you can imagine yourself leading an active outdoor lifestyle.

These are places (except for Orlando) where spectacular natural scenery is visible from medium-density residential neighborhoods, where the boundary between suburb and city is hard to detect. These are places with loose social structures and relative social equality, without the Ivy League status system of the Northeast or the star structure of L.A. These places are car-dependent and spread out, but they also have strong cultural identities and pedestrian meeting places. They offer at least the promise of friendlier neighborhoods, slower lifestyles and service-sector employment. They are neither traditional urban centers nor atomized suburban sprawl.

What do you think? Does it meet your definition of utopia?