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Another factor is unlike back when women often stayed at home, when both spouses are working it becomes harder for both of them to change jobs simultaneously and relocate.
I frankly didn't find the notion surprising. I think it's fairly easy on this forum to forget that there are quite a lot of large to midsized metro areas that are seeing low levels of international and domestic migration. Many of us on here live in fairly transient cities, myself included, but a lot of the country just isn't seeing that.
Additionally, even places that should be huge migration magnets currently aren't. Take the Twin Cities, for example. Its population growth is booming by Midwestern standards, although it's certainly lagging in comparison to some of the large Sunbelt cities. The area has a strong economy, plentiful jobs, and a fairly low cost of living. On paper the metro area should be exploding rather than seeing fairly modest growth, but it gets overlooked not only nationally but also within the Midwest itself.
Whether things change in the future I cannot say, but the country's current population growth trends won't necessarily help solve the problem. In either 2015 or 2016 the US had its lowest year over year population growth percentage since the Great Depression. It would appear we're on course to start matching various European counties growth (or lack thereof) rates. With this model in mind, there will be a limited number of huge migration winners and a lot of areas that will be stagnant or even bleeding people.
An aging population might be the short answer here. Fewer people willing to uproot everything to take a chance on something that will be risky, expensive and perhaps something to regret, especially if they're older, and the benefits are outweighed by the risks. Someone in his/her twenties should absolutely take these risks, but people in their 50s need to think twice before leaping. ..
Having said all this, we do need a certain amount of curiosity and mobility in order to remain vibrant. Staying in the same metro area for one's entire life is a dull and uninspiring way to live.
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Originally Posted by MassVt
An aging population might be the short answer here. Fewer people willing to uproot everything to take a chance on something that will be risky, expensive and perhaps something to regret, especially if they're older, and the benefits are outweighed by the risks. Someone in his/her twenties should absolutely take these risks, but people in their 50s need to think twice before leaping. ..
Having said all this, we do need a certain amount of curiosity and mobility in order to remain vibrant. Staying in the same metro area for one's entire life is a dull and uninspiring way to live.
Not really. Only if you're not satisfied enough with where you are. Many people are fortunate enough to grow up where they are perfectly happy living, while other people aren't. If I grew up in the place I wanna move to for settling down, I'd stay in the same metro area too. I'd argue that its dull and uninspiring to always live in a place you don't like very much, but if your favourite city is Boston and you were born and raised in Boston, why would living anywhere else be an improvement? You're perfectly happy being a Bostonian! And here in Texas there's lots of people who are native Texans and are 110% proud of Texas and have no desire to live elsewhere. Why should they? I don't wanna live in Texas or Florida my whole life but those that do, more power to y'all!
An aging population might be the short answer here. Fewer people willing to uproot everything to take a chance on something that will be risky, expensive and perhaps something to regret, especially if they're older, and the benefits are outweighed by the risks. Someone in his/her twenties should absolutely take these risks, but people in their 50s need to think twice before leaping. ..
Having said all this, we do need a certain amount of curiosity and mobility in order to remain vibrant. Staying in the same metro area for one's entire life is a dull and uninspiring way to live.
Its mainly because from the collapse of the pre-bellum society to WWII the basically entire south was unindustrialized backwater so tons of people were flowing Northward, coupled with the Dust Bowl in the middle of the Country driving people to California during the early part of the 20th century swaths of the country were pretty much awful.
Nowadays Oklahoma city isn't a post-apocalyptic dusty hell scape like it was for about 20 years of the 20th century, and Nashville isn't a depressed truck stop with a few honkytonks. In 1940 electricity was new to large parts of Tennessee, while a city like Buffalo got electricity at the turn of the 20th century.
Today the differences are more cultural than economic, it makes perfect sense that fewer people are moving.
I didn't read the article, but if we are talking about moving, and encouraging it, I'll just say "No thanks". I screwed up and moved away from my home area and home state several years ago, and regret it everyday. Maybe others benefit, but I got burned by that bad decision.
Yeah, at first, I thought I was really big by making the leap, and moving on. I thought I moved up a level or two. In the end, it was just an illusion. It wasn't worth the glory or whatever I temporarily gained.
If I had the time, I'd write a long story or article about the benefits of not leaving one's home area.
I don't think this is a threat, it just means Americans are settling in their hometown and they're not willing to be on the constant move so they can comply with the location of a job.
In fact this constant moving around is what made our cities so vanilla, many just lack an identity because a lot of its inhabitants are temporary suburbanites.
We need denser cities, where the is a sense of belonging, with efficient public transportation, following sustainable development models. Not enormous car dependent continuously expanding suburban sprawls with a constantly moving population.
There may be something to that.
For a fact, we need to understand that the Boomer Generation enjoyed a period that was an anomaly in human history, and the Boomer Generation way of life is not by any means guaranteed immutable. The world is moving back to its normal point of stability.
I don't think this is a threat, it just means Americans are settling in their hometown and they're not willing to be on the constant move so they can comply with the location of a job.
In fact this constant moving around is what made our cities so vanilla, many just lack an identity because a lot of its inhabitants are temporary suburbanites.
We need denser cities, where the is a sense of belonging, with efficient public transportation, following sustainable development models. Not enormous car dependent continuously expanding suburban sprawls with a constantly moving population.
That's overtly simplistic and overlooks the premise of what drives the economic development. It's not the individuals, it's corporations. People need to move where the jobs are. I mean it's swell to suggest people abandon the suburbs for city-living, but where would they all work? A prior post supports the premise of this thread with mention of Minneapolis. Despite it's economic strength via well-paying jobs and overall higher quality of life people are still largely piling into Sunbelt cities with lower paying jobs and increasing income inequality through increasing housing/rental costs (among others) due to the perception of a better standard of living. Unfortunately the mirage of a better life largely hasn't sunk in yet but can see in one of those "prime destinations" (Orlando where I currently live) signs of that slowing down as most available jobs/salaries cannot support a decent quality of life not to mention the increasing sprawl and congestion that comes along with it.
That's overtly simplistic and overlooks the premise of what drives the economic development. It's not the individuals, it's corporations. People need to move where the jobs are. I mean it's swell to suggest people abandon the suburbs for city-living, but where would they all work? A prior post supports the premise of this thread with mention of Minneapolis. Despite it's economic strength via well-paying jobs and overall higher quality of life people are still largely piling into Sunbelt cities with lower paying jobs and increasing income inequality through increasing housing/rental costs (among others) due to the perception of a better standard of living. Unfortunately the mirage of a better life largely hasn't sunk in yet but can see in one of those "prime destinations" (Orlando where I currently live) signs of that slowing down as most available jobs/salaries cannot support a decent quality of life not to mention the increasing sprawl and congestion that comes along with it.
A lot of people overlook how important cost of living is in quality of life.
At 31, I earn a salary that I believe many on the coasts would believe to be difficult to get by on, but in the suburban Upper Midwest it allows me a 2,200 square foot house, with a yard, in a good, walkable neighborhood, with great schools, two newer cars, two kids, a retirement account that is healthily growing, and enough leftover for eating out, recreation, and regular vacations to local destinations - and all this with my wife taking a few years off with our kids who are both under 2.
I hear a lot of people my age complain that the American dream is dead because you can't afford a house or a family - and this is true in much of the nation, but not so much in the Heartland. When weighing job prospects from NYC, Orlando, the SF Bay area and Detroit - I found the most sensible choice was to move somewhere that many consider to be undesirable (Detroit), because when I crunched the numbers it would allow for a much higher standard of living in a much nicer neighborhood - and somewhat to my surprise it has turned out to be a great place to live.
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