Residential Mobility

Individual Mobility Effects

While the population moves frequently, there is a wide variation in the probability across individuals. Some people are in constant motion, while others stay in the same general community for a lifetime. About a quarter of U.S. adults reports having lived in only one place, while another quarter reports having lived in four or more places.

Are the consequences of mobility generally good or bad for the individual? One common theme in popular and academic literature is that residential mobility has negative consequences for the well-being and social integration of individuals. For instance, immigrants from abroad are often seen as “uprooted” in their new lands from traditional social ties through family and immediate friends. John Hagan, Ross Macmillan, and Blair Wheaton (1996) found that children indeed lose the benefits of social ties when moving, but they also found that this loss could be mitigated by parental involvement and support.

However, if the benefits derived from social ties are differentially distributed throughout neighborhoods, then moving out of disadvantaged neighborhoods can have positive consequences for individuals. Jens Ludwig, Greg Duncan, and Paul Hirschfield (2001), in a study utilizing a randomized housing-mobility experiment, looked at families relocated from high-to low-poverty neighborhoods and found reduced arrest rates among the teenagers. Additionally, those who argue for the negative effects of mobility on the individual may minimize some important facts about migrants: Much population movement occurs because individuals are returning to places where they once lived. Furthermore, many migrants move because they are trying to be reunited with family and friends that they have known in the past. In addition, migrants are often drawn from the high-status segments of communities and have skills through their educational attainment that make them attractive and easily accepted citizens of their new communities.

Aggregate Mobility Effects

A more fruitful question is whether aggregate or group rates of residential mobility have much impact on the overall life of communities. Potentially, residential mobility may have a great impact, especially when the people moving in have different social characteristics from those moving out. Thus, many urban neighborhoods changed during the past fifty years from white to black residential dominance through the outflow of one racial group and the inmigration of the other. Yet, amid great flux in the individual residents of the area, most communities maintain an amazing stability over time in specific characteristics of the population. For instance, in many apartment-house districts of major cities, more than two-thirds of residences change occupants in a five-year period with virtually no alteration in the social composition and physical features of the neighborhood.

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