A model, not
a moving order.

An original editorial discovery tool. Not a validated psychological assessment or professional relocation service. It does not know the one place you belong.

Everyday experiments

The weekend, hosting and project-start quizzes each use 12 original scenarios and four equally weighted styles. Each choice adds one point to a style, with option positions rotated. Highest count wins; ties show every tied style. The result page shows counts and the model version. These are playful editorial reflections, not validated personality, mental-health, productivity or ability tests. Different situations can change your answers. Shared links contain style counts, not individual answers.

What the city questions do

The 16, 24 and 32-question versions cover eight axes with two, three or four statements per axis. Responses run from 0 to 4. Reverse-worded statements are flipped, averaged, then scaled to 0-100. More questions offer more situations to consider; we do not claim an accuracy improvement.

Six named profiles summarize preferences. They are editorial labels, not diagnoses or demographic groups. Social rhythm shapes that text only. We do not rate cities on friendliness, anonymity or community cohesion.

How cities are ranked

Seven factors enter the model: annual average high temperature, snow, rain, and cost from the source snapshot; city intensity, cultural appetite and outdoor pull from coarse editorial tags of 0-4 scaled to 0-100.

• Warmth = clamp((annual high °F − 50) / 37 × 100).
• Snow = clamp(annual snow inches / 55 × 100).
• Rain = clamp(annual rain inches / 65 × 100).
• Cost requirement = clamp((cost index − 85) / 105 × 100).
• For six factors, distance is the absolute difference from your preference. For cost, only a requirement above your tolerance adds distance. Willingness to pay more does not penalize a cheaper city.
• Factors have equal weight unless you choose one to count twice. Fit = 100 minus weighted mean distance, rounded. Ties sort alphabetically.

The scaling bounds are design choices. A fit score is useful only inside this model. 83/100 is not an 83% chance of happiness, scientific accuracy, or better living conditions.

Filters are screens, not guarantees

Optional cost, snow and rain caps exclude cities using the snapshot. If none qualifies, we show no match instead of relaxing limits. The cost screen is not a budget or proof a home is affordable. Annual averages conceal extremes, humidity, smoke, flooding and seasonal patterns. Source definitions and periods differ; inspect the city notes.

Sources and reuse

The 75-city catalog combines 58 CityCheck climate records with 17 NOAA 1991-2020 station-normal records. Each NOAA-backed city names its station and links its CSV. Station conditions can differ from a neighborhood. NOAA precipitation includes melted snow; CityCheck labels its field rain but does not specify a station/normal period. We display both as an annual precipitation screen, not an exact like-for-like rainfall measurement. Missing values have not been filled with nearby-city guesses.

• CityCheck open data ↗ provides cost and climate data under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, allowing commercial reuse with attribution. Snapshot retrieved October 29, 2026. Underlying reference year for these values is not specified.
• Climate dataset ↗ names NOAA, NWS and historical weather-station data as sources. The response used here has no station IDs or consistent normal period. Values are source-reported averages, not independently verified NOAA normals.
• Cost dataset ↗ names BEA Regional Price Parities, C2ER and Census ACS as sources. We use its index as a coarse comparison, not reproduced proprietary underlying data. Inputs have not been independently audited.
• NOAA climate normals ↗ explains consistent 30-year normal periods. Our aggregator snapshot should not be confused with verified station-specific normals.
• Destination guides on each city page inform the tags and place notes. Visitor-oriented sources are not neutral proof of resident experience. Tags and prose are our judgments. Inspect the full city catalog JSON.

Optional historical political comparison

The American Ideology Project v2022 estimates residents' overall policy ideology from survey data. We use its 2017-2021 city-period rows, not presidential voting or a current city-government rating. Christopher Warshaw and Chris Tausanovitch, CC BY 4.0. Dataset and license ↗.

Opting in compares a desired relative position with the ordered 75-city set: lower source estimates are more liberal, higher estimates more conservative. The liberal option starts at the lower end, middle at the median and conservative at the higher end; the five nearest positions form a separate shortlist. This ordinal choice is an editorial convenience, not a validated mapping from your beliefs to the model. It does not change lifestyle ranks or their scores, and it cannot honor a distinct fiscal/social split. The set itself skews liberal. Estimates have sampling/model uncertainty, and small rank differences may not be meaningful.

City notes show source geography, estimate, standard error and sample size. Nashville-Davidson, Indianapolis balance, Louisville/Jefferson and Lexington-Fayette use consolidated-government boundaries; Honolulu uses Urban Honolulu CDP. Other source names include Boise City. None describes every neighborhood, individual or today's politics. Choose skip if dated overall context is not useful.

What this leaves out

Jobs, legal rights, discrimination, safety, schools, healthcare, accessibility, housing availability, family, support networks, disasters and neighborhoods can outweigh the result. We do not infer anyone's politics, health, religion, ethnicity, income or family status.

Model city-v2 · 75 U.S. cities · Snapshot October 29, 2026. Old city-v1 result links keep the original 28-city catalog. Shared links preserve scores, filters and model version, not individual answers.