This Is Where You Belong?: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live

In the spirit of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss, a journalist embarks on a project to discover what it takes to love where you live.Austin, Texas, was supposed to be the city where Melody Warnick and her family stayed forever. But soon after moving there, they packed their belongings and, like millions of restless Americans, ventured cross-country. This time, though, Melody had an epiphany. Rather than hold her breath and hope Blacksburg, Virginia, was her perfect town, she would figure out how to fall in love with her new home. Warnick’s journey to find out what makes us love our towns and cities, and why it matters, is at the heart of This Is Where You Belong. She dives into the body of research around place attachment—the deep sense of connection that residents sometimes feel with their towns—and travels to towns across America to see it in action. She finds out what draws highly mobile Americans to the places we live and what makes them stay. Her best ideas are imported to her adopted hometown of Blacksburg for a series of Love Where You Live experiments designed to make her feel more locally connected: dining with the neighbors, taking a hike, meeting the mayor, marching in the town Christmas parade, and more. Can these activities make a halfhearted resident happier? Will Blacksburg be the place she finally stays?What Melody learns is good news for anyone who’s ever felt stuck in a not-so-perfect place: You don’t have to be in your dream city to have a great life. You just have to love the place you’re in to be healthier, happier, more socially connected, and more resilient.