My Most Appropriate City?

19 June 2005, 0159 EDT

Like Scott, I found my results in the “Which American Cities Best Fit You?” survey a little surpring:

American Cities That Best Fit You:

80% Chicago
75% Philadelphia
70% New York City
65% Boston
45% Atlanta

My real list is NYC; Boston; San Francisco; Washington, DC; Chicago; and Minneapolis.

I suppose part of the problem with this survey is that it probably gives the questions equal weight. Thus, for example, it can’t know that a particular issue, like really bad suburban sprawl, could be a deal-killer for a particular city.

The survey also doesn’t allow one to express strong biases against living in particular regions, although I suppose there are good reasons not to do that: one might never consider a city – in my case, Atlanta – that one might actually enjoy living in (except that I have spent a fair amount of time in Atlanta and didn’t like it, so that’s not a good example).

Anyone know of a survey that includes non-US cities? Copenhagen, Toronto, and London would all be high on my list. Utrecht and Amsterdam would only be a little further down.

Regardless, the survey is a decent waste of a few minutes. I got even more time out of it by playing with the variables (within realistic limits for my preferences) and seeing how they impacted my results. The answer? Not much. The list remained basically stable, but the “percentage match” changed.

So, does this mean I have to start hitting up Dan Drezner’s colleagues for a job?

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