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Do cities have personalities? We think they do. We also think that a city’s personality owes a lot to the people who live there, in addition to all the various things to do it offers.
So, your trusty Movoto Real Estate bloggers recently decided to take on the fairly Herculean task of figuring out a way to sum up the personality of a city based on cold hard facts. You know, the kind we use for the Saturday Night Science of our patented Big Deal Lists. That’s when the idea hit us: Why not use an actual personality test as the basis of our experiment?
That’s exactly what we did. We took the personality descriptors of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test used by psychologists and “relationship gurus” the world over to reduce people to a four-letter descriptor and devised a way to apply it to cities. Or, more specifically, one city: Chicago, IL. We didn’t quite know what to expect, but the result we got really couldn’t have seemed more appropriate.
That result: Chicago is an ENTP, or an Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving personality. What the heck does that mean? According to the Myers and Briggs Foundation, ENTPs are described as:
Source: Wikipedia user Daniel Schwen
This is also called the “lawyer type,” which we found especially interesting. How so? Well, it just so happens that, looking at the occupation data, we found Chicago has a 44 percent higher number of lawyers per 1,000 people employed in the city than the national average. Chicago is also known as a bit of a lawyer town, with its prestigious University of Chicago Law School having turned out several former U.S. Attorney Generals and being where President Barack Obama was himself a law professor before going into politics.
We think words like “stimulating,” “outspoken,” and “quick” are pretty great for describing Chicago and its residents. Once you’re done patting yourselves on the back, “alert” Chicagoans, keep reading to find out how we came to this conclusion.
Devising the Test
For our inaugural test, we decided that we should use a city that we haven’t be thinking or talking a lot about lately, but was still one of the larger in the country. That led us to the selection of Chicago, IL as the subject of our experiment. But how to test it? Here’s what we came up with: We picked occupation types that best represent the elements of all personality types and measured them to see which is dominant in the city.
The Myers-Briggs test uses a set of four dichotomies, each with two (hence the name) classifications. They are:
- Extraversion/Introversion
- Sensing/Intuition
- Thinking/Feeling
- Judging/Perception
You can get a good primer on exactly what they mean here. Honestly, it’s pretty heady stuff that can’t be easily summarized, but thankfully we think it can be represented by real-world occupations. Here’s what we picked for each:
Source: Flickr user Ann Larie Valentine
This one was super-easy, since bartenders are naturally extroverted: action-oriented, seek a breadth of knowledge, and derive energy from being around people.
Accountants (Introversion)
Serious number-crunchers who focus on one thing and go deep with it. Also regularly cited as one of the best occupations for introverts.
Detectives (Sensing)
These folks base their decisions on cold, hard facts and using their own five senses. Like when working to solve a case.
Fine Artists (Intuition)
Intuitives are more flexible and abstract, tending to interpret information and look beyond what you and I may see. That’s how we get lovely paintings that aren’t mere carbon copies of what our eyes might see.
Computer Programmers (Thinking)
The first of two decision-making functions, this one describes people who base what they do on logic and reason. Kind of like Mr. Spock… or professional coders.
PR Specialists (Feeling)
On the other hand, those under the feeling banner are more empathetic, thinking about the needs of others, and better communicators.
Administrative Assistants (Judging)
The judging like their lives in order, can often be found making lists, and get work done before they play. Sounds like a job for an administrative assistant.
Flight Attendants (Perceiving)
The perceiving like to take things one day at a time, don’t plan much, and are generally more impulsive. Flight attendants are off to a new city each day and their schedules turn on a dime.
Running the Numbers
To measure these, we turned to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a popular resource around these parts. We created a baseline for them using the national averages for the number of these jobs there are per 1,000 employees. Then, we looked at how many of these jobs there are per every 1,000 people employed in Chicago. The deviation from the average helped us choose which occupation—and thus which side of the dichotomy—the city was strongest in. It broke down like this:
Extraversion: Bartenders, 4.942 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 4.131 per 1,000 jobs
0.811 above average
Introversion: Accountants, 7.993 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 8.668 per 1,000 jobs
0.675 below average
Strongest Trait: Extraversion (E)
Sensing: Detectives, 0.498 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 0.838 per 1,000 jobs
0.34 below average
Intuition: Fine Artists, 0.087 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 0.096 per 1,000 jobs
0.009 below average
Strongest Trait: Intuition (N)
Thinking: Computer Programmers, 4.488 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 2.431 per 1,000 jobs
2.057 above average
Feeling: Public Relations Specialists, 1.225 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 1.545 per 1,000 jobs
0.32 below average
Strongest Trait: Thinking (T)
Judging: Administrative Assistants, 12.414 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 16.008 per 1,000 jobs
3.594 below average
Perceiving: Flight Attendants, 2.350 per 1,000 jobs
National Avg: 0.652 per 1,000 jobs
1.698 above average
Strongest Trait: Perceiving (P)
Thus, Chicago is an ENTP, or an Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving personality.
So, Chicagoans, the next time someone asks “what’s your city like?,” you can confidently say “ingenious”—and all that other good stuff above.
If you live in Chicago—or just have an opinion—would you say the ENTP description above is accurate in describing Chicago and its people? Let us know in the comments below. Be warned that we expect your comments to be “stimulating” and “quick.”
