Mapumental is a service currently in private beta allowing users to explore an interactive map of London for things like commute time, home prices, and idyllic settings. It's a beautiful way to explore and understand the city even if you have no interest in moving. There is little doubt that more services like this will appear in the coming years, and praise Buddha for that.
PSFK has the story and video demonstration of Mapumental.
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Jonah Lehrer, in his excellent book How We Decide, makes the surprising statement that big decisions such as where to live or which home to buy should not be made with the rational brain; instead, he argues, these decisions are best left to our subconscious information-assimilating emotional brain, tempered against recognition of human fallibility and bias from the rational brain.
Pick up the book for a detailed and convincing explanation, but, briefly, the rational brain can only handle a handful of variables at a time, and to try to piece these together and decide their relative importance is a laborious and, in fact, impossible task. On the other hand, this is what the emotional brain excels at: piecing together vast amounts of disparate data and announcing the results of its mysterious cost-benefit analysis by triggering, with dopamine, a pleasant sensation.
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