If You Could Live Anywhere
The Surprising Importance of Place in a Work-from-Anywhere World
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Even when your job can be done from anywhere, the place you call home still matters—a lot.
By the old rules of work, your dream career determines where you live. If you want to make movies, move to Los Angeles. If you want to work in publishing, you must be in New York. And if you're launching a start-up, you'll only succeed in Silicon Valley.
But with the meteoric rise of remote and freelance work, more people than ever are becoming location independent. Even doctors, teachers, and other people in more traditional occupations have to make tough choices about where they settle, because living in the right place can still make all the difference for your success and happiness.
So if work won't dictate where you live, how will you ever decide?
If You Could Live Anywhere answers that question. Melody Warnick unpacks the big-picture concerns that we often miss when we're writing pros-and-cons lists about potential destinations. Because the secret to being happy isn't moving, it's aligning your location with your values. You'll learn how to craft a personal location strategy that will make the most of your money, your community, and your life, with success stories from people who flexed their location independence to find homes and work they love.
The future of work is clear: it can happen wherever you are. So where do you really want to be?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This out-of-touch manual from journalist Warnick (This Is Where You Belong) offers remote workers guidance on finding a home base. Warnick suggests that those who are able to work remotely (whom she calls "Anywhereists") should reconsider where they live, taking into account different locations' economic incentives, such as Vermont's grant program that reimbursed remote workers up to $10,000 to move to the state. She also highlights the benefits of moving somewhere with a low cost of living, noting that a cheaper locale could mean fewer work hours, earlier retirement, or being able to afford more nice things. On the importance of connection, the author tells how a Denver woman relocated to a small Oregon town and created a work community by opening a coworking space in an old opera house. The author's glib treatment of gentrification will likely rankle some (she describes those opposed to unchecked development as "CAVE people—citizens against virtually everything"), and the advice is often impractical, such as the recommendation to "ask for what you want" from a town's chamber of commerce before moving. This is a missed opportunity.