He's plugged into the new freedom to choose

"If everything that exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on ad infinitum."

Aristotle

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It's not very often that the author of a book discussing economics and sociology for a general readership starts with a quote by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. But when the writer is the thought-provoking intellectual Richard Florida -- who claims in his new book, "Who's Your City?," that the selection of where to live ranks as life's most important decision -- it's easier to see why he found Aristotle's quote both appropriate and prescient.

Florida, who is a professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and received his doctorate in urban planning from Columbia University, first leaped onto the literary stage with his 2002 bestseller "The Rise of the Creative Class."

In his new book, he argues that while improvements in communication technology make global commerce possible, that doesn't make the world flat. In fact, he says that the newfound freedom to live and work almost anywhere is not only allowing people to select places that best match their personalities and life stages, but it's also forcing cities to decide what types of residents and businesses they hope to attract.

The stakes are high: Cities able to recruit creative, scientific and entrepreneurial talent with tolerance and beauty (the San Francisco Bay Area, for example) rank as the world's leading "mega regions," while those rooted in long-standing traditions and resistant to change (many Rust Belt cities, for instance) tend to decline over time, exporting their best and brightest to New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and other such places.

Not surprisingly, it's in these mega-regions that homeowners will have the best chance for long-term price appreciation, according to the author.

This ongoing process of importing and exporting human talent -- dubbed by journalist Bill Bishop "the big sort" -- is leading to what Florida calls "spiky" metropolitan regions, in which people tend to cluster by interests and personalities in specific places.

Thus, if you're a budding entrepreneur who craves the company of other innovators, cities such as Boston, Seattle or Austin, Texas, would be a good fit. Looking for innovation plus adventure? Then such overseas cities as Tokyo, Berlin or even Helsinki, Finland, could work.