Where Should You Really Live? A Ten-Minute Way to Find Out

Almost nobody chose the city they live in.

You were born there, or a job moved you, or you followed someone, or the rent was cheap one year and then a decade went by. Where you live is one of the biggest decisions of a life, and most of us made it by accident.

Some guides answer the question with star charts, but I won't.

AI can do the part you'd never get round to alone. You might have a vague sense that somewhere else would suit you better. AI can turn that into a short list of places to go and stand in, with no birth time required.

Tonight, three Tuesdays

You don't know what you want from a place until you meet one you don't want, so start with pictures.

I'm working out where I should live. Here's my situation. [job, who you need to be near, roughly what you can afford]. Write me three short paragraphs. Each one is an ordinary Tuesday five years from now in a very different kind of place. One is a big city, one is a small town with a train station, and one is somewhere near the sea or the hills. Same job, same people. Make each one specific, with the commute, the shop, the evening and the weekend. Don't say which you'd recommend. Then ask me which one made me wince, which made me jealous, and why.

Treat your reactions as your starting instructions, and count the surprising ones most. Maybe the big-city Tuesday tired you just to read, or maybe you found that "two hours from Mum" is the line you won't cross.

Say your reactions out loud and let AI write them down. Then ask AI to write back, in one paragraph, what you seem to want from a place, and correct that paragraph where it's wrong.

The paragraph is yours, and everything after tonight hangs from it.

The paragraph might read like a stranger wrote it, which means the three Tuesdays didn't get enough out of you. If so, let AI interview you instead. Try "Ask me one question at a time about work, the people I need near, cost, climate, weekends and what I'd miss." Then add "Push back where I contradict myself." After that, rewrite the paragraph from what comes out.

Before bed, eight places with their flaws showing

Turn web search on, so AI can look things up online and you get current rents and real train times, not what AI half-remembers.

Using the paragraph above, give me eight places I should consider, anywhere I could realistically live. For each one, tell me why it fits, the one thing about it that would bother me most, a rough current rent for the kind of home I described with a link, and the travel time to [the people I need to be near]. Include at least two places I probably haven't thought of. Rank them, and tell me what the ranking is based on.

The worst-feature line does the work. Eight perfect places are useless, but eight places with their worst feature named are something you can think with.

Click the rent links, because rents move and AI will quote a figure from two years ago with total confidence.

Tomorrow, argue with AI

Read the list again in daylight and notice your gut. One place will excite you, and you'll want to cross another off without reading it. Both reactions tell you something.

I'm drawn to [place] and I want to dismiss [place]. For each, make the strongest case for the opposite view. Then tell me which of my own answers from the interview I seem to be ignoring.

AI has no stake in where you end up, so AI is useful here. But left to itself, AI will flatter the place you already like, which is why you asked for the opposite case.

Pushed, AI will point out that you said "near family" three times and then lit up at somewhere four hours away. Disagree if you like, and sometimes you should. But you'll be disagreeing with your own words, which is a better argument to have.

All AI knows is what you told it, so if you weren't honest last night, the shortlist belongs to someone else.

This month, two weekends

A shortlist is a reason to go and look. Take the top two and spend an ordinary weekend in each.

Plan a weekend in [place] that shows me what living there would be like, not visiting. Include a weekday-morning commute to [work or station], a food shop, the neighbourhood I'd realistically afford, and one thing locals complain about.

No prompt replaces this, because AI can't feel the light on the high street or hear whether people say hello. The choice gets made on a pavement somewhere new, by you.

Take last night's paragraph with you and read it on the train home. You'll know.

Ask for your three Tuesdays tonight, and book the first weekend before the month is out.