There’s this weird phenomenon that always happens when I tell people I wrote a book about place attachment. They desperately want to tell me their place history. Where they grew up. Where they used to live. Where they live now. Where they wished they live. Absolutely everyone on earth has a story to share about place—and from what I’ve seen, … Read More
Issue 1: My Book Is Here. Well, Almost.
I’ve spent nearly three years working on it. Luckily, you only have to wait 11 days. My first book, This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live, will be published by Viking/Penguin on June 21. In a nutshell, it’s about how to put down roots and be happy in your city—and how, after … Read More
Doing These 3 Things After a Vacation Will Make You Happier
Why does everyone hate tourists? Because we gawk. We rhapsodize about boring stuff like buildings (“Oh my gosh, the architecture!”). We snap pictures of subway entrances and sandwiches. In short, we pay attention in a way we usually don’t in our owns hometowns, and that focus and excitement reawakens us to the thrilling power of place. In fact, a really … Read More
Why people fall in love with New York City
Years ago, when we were just graduating from college, Quinn and I had a choice: Washington, D.C., or New York? In Washington he’d been offered a fine, upstanding job as a legislative aide to a U.S. senator; he would wear suits every day and work in an office next to the Capitol building. In New York, he would have a … Read More
Love Where You Live experiment: Go to a parade
It’s Wednesday night, dinnertime, and I’m weaving at top speed through the back roads of Blacksburg, trying to make it downtown before the snare drums do. Cranking my window down as I parallel park, I cock an ear. Are they coming? Is that a distant brass section or just the complaints of Main Street traffic? Finally jammed into a mostly … Read More