"I have heard you intend to settle us on a reservation
near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies.
There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down, we grow pale and
die."
- Chief Satanta, Kiowa
In our cultural studies inventory of values, America’s top
motivators—mobility comes close to the top, just below The Individual is the Core
of American Life. Freedom to be oneself is
closely tied to freedom of movement (and assembly); the right to choose your location
and social base supersedes the traditional value of family as our key to
identity. This is why we believe in love
rather than family obligations as the prime motivator for marriage. At the mobility end of the scale, a common
reason given for not taking on the care of older relatives is that this caregiving
would stand in the way of the caretaker’s right to travel. Not even actual
travel, but the cultural value placed on the right to mobility.
Historian Yoni Applebaum opens his Atlantic article on the mobility
= freedom equation with this salvo:
The idea that people should be able
to choose their own communities—instead of being stuck where they are born—is a
distinctly American innovation. It is
the foundation for the country’s prosperity and democracy, and it just may be
America’s most profound contribution to the world. (p. 34)
The author’s tracing of mobility identifies the nineteenth
century as the height of moving, with a third of all Americans changing address
every year. Moving Day on May 1 was a
national celebration--of a giant house swap.
Along with the willingness to move comes progress and opportunity for
new work, society, status, and outlook.
For Americans, moving is taken as a positive sign of free choice to
improve circumstances and relationships—beyond a bigger or better house. This is the main reason families are so
far-flung and distant. “Mobility is what
made this country prosperous and pluralistic, diverse and dynamic.”
“But,” cautions Applebaum, “over the past fifty years, the
engine of American opportunity has stopped working.” In 1960, one of every five Americans in any
given year moved house. In 2023, just one
in thirteen moved. “The sharp decline in
geographic mobility is the single most important social change of the past half
century.”
Why is this occurring?
The population is aging, and people move far less when they are older; the
US median age was 16 in 1800, 39 today.
Houses cost more, much more.
People can switch jobs and work remotely without moving. There are more homeowners than ever—and
homeowners move less than renters.
Two-income households are trickier to place in new jobs, another reason
moving has slowed. And joint custody
arrangements keep more divorced parents in place until kids move away.
Where housing is affordable, jobs are scarce – whereas the
highest-profile rich enclaves do offer housing, just at levels that begin at $1
million. This housing versus opportunity
ratio is at the root of the culture wars between working-class and
privilege. “The freedom to choose one’s
city or community has become a privilege of class.”
But perhaps even more important are the many housing
regulations that have widened the inequality gap. Such codes, now rampant, keep
new owners and tenants out of places that used to be accessible: landmarked historic
areas, segregated-usage zones, and anti-construction domains, are there to
prevent adaptive reuse and the demon watchword, growth. In step with homeowner
associations, environmental sanctuaries, and gentrified local control. In the name of preserving quality of life,
these measures keep people in place by stopping most incursion by less-desirable
groups.
Here is my letter to the Commons, The Atlantic’s editorial
page:
Ref: The Atlantic, “Stuck in Place:
why Americans stopped moving house and why that’s a very big problem,” Yoni
Applebaum, March 2025
Tracking the American moving record reveals values central
to American culture. In my work as a
cultural analyst and Americanist, mobility stands in the top tier of” deep culture”
motives that make us who we are. Our historic
willingness to pull up and replant roots underlies the constant search for our
ideal identity, community, and future. Indirectly, though, Applebaum hits upon
the paradox at the heart of mobility.
This happens when our leaning toward equality and tolerance
(on the way up in the journey to realize selfhood) then starts to mitigate
against the striving of aspiration and class-raising—as seen in the relentless
competition for elite college admission.
This striving takes over career, marriage, and, as here, in the prestige
address as the control center (rather than the European castle) to manage all
these enterprises. Focused strivers
quickly enter the playoffs to fill the fewer and fewer places at the top — including
housing. This produces hierarchy, not
equality. Rarity itself is what endows the
“lovely house” of the Millionaire Next Door with its multi-million-dollar value.
And because it is location, location, location that prices
real estate, desirable addresses also become self-valuated at a rising clip,
going to the highest bidders; if everyone wanted to live in mixed-residential
neighborhoods, they would command the highest listing scores. We don’t buy houses; we buy homes with fixed
addresses. The Cleveland Parks, the Main
Lines, are enclaves in which to cluster with like-minded neighbors with
compatible values proven by net worth.
Those who have worked for a lifetime to reach a residential goal are
loathe to start sharing it out among the not-yet-certified (with college as the
qualifier). Doing so would be, they
figure, a matter of compromise that devalues their own achievement: that of
creating a community of excellence for mutual benefit among high achievers. Inviting incursion by lesser others is not on
the agenda (although marginally possible to pull off). Why would you, your children, and their
children willingly diminish such a sought-after prize if, as the author avers,
“where you raise them” is the highest-leverage factor in success? And, frankly, the built-in target of college
recruiters is the wealthy enclave.
The right to make our own decisions, about where we live as
well as our college, career, and spouse (the car completes the high-ticket
list) is one of negotiation, balanced by the dreams and decisions, hard work
and investment, of others: it is socially construed. We must always operate—and dream—within and
around the social order and its cultural agenda of power and values.
Singer John “Denver’s own choice was to make laws to keep his
favorite state Colorado’s population from growing. The land would remain beautiful by denying entry
to the many who wanted to move there--after he himself was securely settled. Since he wrote “Rocky Mountain High,” the
state’s population doubled. Another unintended consequence, surely.
