If You Could Live Anywhere ...

IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE by Melody Warnick is the latest from the author of This is Where You Belong. I had really enjoyed that text about establishing connections to a new community. Her latest offers similar frank discussion, this time about “The Surprising Importance of Place in a Work-from-Anywhere World.” Warnick begins with a brief discussion of the 3 subtypes of Anywhereists: Wanderers, Seekers, and Settlers. She notes the increase in opportunities for remote work and the potential role that plays in one’s “approach to place, mobility, and location decision-making.” The first exercise she offers is twenty questions to aid in figuring out if you should move at all. Next, there are exercises that look at past geographic locales, at place “values” and attributes (e.g., sights, smells, cultural offerings), and at identifying any deal breakers. Encouraging that type of introspection and/or conversation is very helpful and Warnick provides plenty of background statistics and real-life anecdotes. For example, one area she explores is workforce development and upskilling; Christopher Mims also just profiled some of those programs in a Wall Street Journal article.  IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE is geared mainly towards remote workers, freelancers, knowledge workers, entrepreneurs, and retirees. It tends to be US-centric, but Warnick’s questions would guide a search for an international location as well. Her writing prompted me to do some active searching and to look for volunteer opportunities in various localities. At least ten percent of the text is devoted to notes, but I do wish that she had provided a separate set of resources (e.g., City-Data.com) and links to further aid her readers in choosing not only a city or town, but even a neighborhood.