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| A panoramic view of Santa Monica, California |
Where is the "best" place for you to live? How can you use your experiences to find your "best" place, or places, to live? You can think about this question to find very specific places, or a wider region.
First, list the places where you've lived in the past, then make a second list of other places that you've only visited but were attractive to you. You probably don't know quite as much about the places in the second list, but that's OK!
Second, look at the list of places where you've lived, and make a new list of the qualities that you liked about those places. Do the same for the places that you've visited. Combine these two lists of qualities, and use one letter to represent each quality. I recommend that you put at least five qualities in your list, to help you differentiate the places in your two lists. (When I did this exercise, I used ten qualities.)
Third, choose which two or three of the qualities in your list are most important to you. Rank these two or three as #1, #2, and so on. These are "tie-breaker" qualities.
Fourth, use the single letters to tag each place in your two lists. Use the tags in the same order for each place. Use an "x" to indicate absence of a quality.
Fifth, next to each place in your lists, add up and write its number of qualities, then re-order the places in the two lists based on how many tags each has. For each group with the same score, re-order those again using the tie-breaker tags. For example, if three places have the same "score," but only one has one of your tie-breaker tags, then move that place higher among those three.
After these five steps, you have two lists of places that you have ranked. Places that have all the qualities that you like are great candidates to improve your life as your next residence! (And maybe your "best" place is somewhere from your past!) Perhaps you've remembered places that you want to know better during a future visit. It is your decision which qualities, and how many, are most important to you.
Tip #1: If you can't judge a particular quality for a place, use "?" as the tag and assume that this quality is present. That is, you haven't yet ruled out that quality for that place. You must investigate further!
Tip #2: At your option, you can also make a "disqualified" list for places that have NONE of your tie-breaker qualities, so that you don't consider them if you make this investigation again.
Tip #3: Consider affordability, especially for a place with a good economy.
Tip #4: "Noise" often correlates with "pollution," unless there are beneficial prevailing winds, such as to/from the ocean.
Best places where I've lived
Some best places I've visited
Qualities
("Santamonicapierandbeachpanorama" by Mfield, Matthew Field, http://www.photography.mattfield.com - Own work. Licensed under GFDL 1.2 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santamonicapierandbeachpanorama.jpg#/media/File:Santamonicapierandbeachpanorama.jpg)
