We’ve created a guide to help you determine which city best suits your personality. Let’s start by finding your personality type
Determine Your Personality Type
If you need to evaluate your personality, try the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The Myers-Briggs is broken down into four areas that act like a sliding scale.
- Introversion-Extroversion: This describes how you like to engage with the world. Introverts focus on their inner world and prefer solitude or more meaningful interactions. Extroverts are frequently social and energized by being around others.
- Sensing-Intuition: This is how you evaluate the world around you. If you’re sensing, you like to focus on reality and facts, while more intuitive folks rely on their personal values, future possibilities and the big picture.
- Thinking-Feeling: This is how you make decisions. Thinking means you make choices based on logic and objectivity. Feeling types base decisions on emotions and empathy.
- Judging-Perceiving: This indicates your organizational style. Judging types like structure and clear decisions, while perceiving types prefer spontaneity and staying open.
Your results can quickly be summarized in four letters. You may be an INFP, an ESTJ or a different combination entirely. Each letter indicates where you land on the scale.
U.S. Cities By Personality
Let’s look at which cities might match your personality type. For more options, check out Myers-Briggs’ own list of cities and personality types.
Ideal Introvert Towns
Not all introverts want to head to remote locations or hidden backwoods, but they may want to move to smaller cities that allow them to get “away” every once in a while. That’s why it’s no surprise that cities like Honolulu, Hawaii; Arvada, Colorado. and Helena, Montana top Myers-Briggs Company’s highest introverted population preference list. Rather than dense urban areas crowded with the potential of social interaction, each city offers natural beauty, outdoor activities and plenty of green space for those who want the amenities of city living while still offering space to recharge social batteries.
Exciting Extrovert Cities
Many extroverts crave social interaction. If you like meeting new people, taking effective public transit or looking for exciting nightlife, cities like New York, Chicago, Miami or Atlanta all provide the classic city life you’ll find appealing.
Sensing Types: Sensible Cities
If you prefer to rely on facts and objectivity to evaluate your surroundings, you may find like-minded people in a manufacturing town like Detroit—the automobile capital of the United States, where engineers and factory employees work side by side. Another option is Chesapeake, Virginia. Its military presence makes it a hot spot for planners who think logically and strategically.
Intuitive Types: Open-Minded Communities
Intuitive personality types are known to be very open-minded. They’re receptive to new ideas and able to focus on the big picture in their communities. That’s why college towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan; Boulder, Colorado or Madison, Wisconsin, where progressive ideas flourish, are attractive to intuitive personality types.
Thanks to top universities like the University of Michigan, the University of Colorado and the University of Wisconsin, these towns have become hot spots for environmentalism, progressive urban planning focused on walkability and biking, a love for arts and a strong sense of community belonging.
Thinking Types: Research and Engineering Cities
Folks with thinking personality types will be drawn to cities that reward logical analysis and structure. San Francisco, a haven for tech, will naturally be exciting if you’re a software engineer, work in research and development or just appreciate ideas that push the world forward.
You may feel at home in Washington, D.C. As the nation’s capital, it offers opportunities for the highest political and military strategy. Cambridge, Massachusetts., the home of Harvard and MIT, also attracts those who appreciate structure and intellectual endeavors.
Feeling Types: Creative and Progressive Towns
Does the thought of too much structure make you feel a bit uncomfortable? Would you rather be in a place with more vibrant creativity? Nashville, Tennessee, with one of the best live music scenes in the country, can provide the creative outlet that feeling personality types crave.
Nashville is also known for its Southern hospitality and reputation as one of the best food cities in the U.S. Portland, Oregon. is another town known for its creativity with a vibrant art and music scene. Plus, its progressive values and diversity can be an empath’s dream.
Judging Types: Practical Places
If you’re a judging personality type, practicality guides many of your decisions, especially when it comes to choosing where to live. You’ll appreciate affordability, the best cities for raising a family, or a destination where you can retire. So, it’s no surprise that cities like Chesapeake, Virginia; Tulsa, Oklahoma or White Plains, New York—known for relative affordability, strong education systems and employment opportunities, rank high for the practical-minded.
Perceiving Types: Diverse Cities, Diverse Options
Perceiving personality types like to remain flexible and adaptable — which may explain why the cities that rank well for these personality types are a bit all over the map—quite literally. A city like Anchorage, Alaska, offers enough outdoor activities to satisfy someone who loves to hit the trail at a moment’s notice, while Oakland, California, offers a diverse community with hip art and culture around every corner.
Maybe your brand of spontaneity means hitting the beach whenever the mood strikes. Some of the best beach cities in the U.S., like Santa Barbara, California or Goleta, California, also ranked high in the perceiving personality trait.
The Moving Company for Every Personality Type
Whether you’re an introspective INFP searching for solace in Honolulu or an outgoing ESTP ready to hit the nightlife of Miami, every personality can appreciate a full-service moving company that provides quality service at every step of your move.
At Bekins Van Lines, we understand your move is more than just a change of address; it’s about finding a community that resonates with you. Wherever you land, we take the worry out of your move so you can focus on starting the next chapter of your life. To get started with your move, contact us for a free estimate.
