Loving Where You Live

 


I recently had the opportunity to visit with Melody Warnkick, author of the book, "This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live."

Her book's premise was to help her family fall in love of their new hometown (after six different moves). Instead of holding her breath and hoping this new town would be her family's perfect fit, she decided to figure out how to fall in love with it.

Place attachment is the deep sense of connection that binds some of us to our cities and increases our physical and emotional well-being.

According to the best research on the topic (done by Gallup with 46,000 adults in 26 cities), the top place-attaching qualities are "fuzzy" ones: "social offerings, aesthetics, and openness.

When residents felt like their city offered a lot to do, looked nice, and welcomed all kinds of people, they felt most attached to it.

According to Gallup, the more emotionally attached residents were to their cities, the better their cities did economically. The theory is that when a community's residents are highly attached, they will spend more time there, spend more money, be more productive, and be more entrepreneurial.

Warnick offers this short place-attachment pop quiz. Keep track of how many times you say yes when thinking of where you live now.

1.     I feel comfortable here.

2.     I know my way around.

3.     The friendships I have with people in my community mean a lot to me.

4.     I like to tell people about where I live.

5.     I'm interested in knowing what is going on here.

6.     I can rely on people in this town to help me.

7.     My town isn't perfect but there are a lot of things that make me love it.

8.     If something exciting was happening here I would want to be involved.

9.     I care about the future success of my town.

10.  It feels like home here.

If you got 10 points, you have deep roots and feel attached to your community. Anyone answering yes to seven or more of these questions is considered to have a healthy place attachment. Lower scores can be and should be improved.

"I would have scored a zero on this quiz originally but I wanted to score better," said Warnick. "You can make choices and do things that improve your place attachment. It often takes about three years so see and feel more place attachment."

In her book, Warnick outlines 10 things that she did as part of her "love where you live experiment." 1. Walk and bike more. 2. Buy local. 3. Get to know my neighbors. 4. Do fun local stuff. 5. Explore nature. 6. Volunteer. 7. Eat local food. 8. Become more civically engaged. 9. Create something new. 10. Stay loyal through hard times and build resilience.

Warnick was a guest presenter for an adult program at the Springfield-Greene County library on March 18 that Greene County MU Extension sponsored.

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