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Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

census.gov

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Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#81

Post by tsol »

fullshark wrote: post #37

A lot of upperwardly mobile, ambitious people don't realize this, or they generally understand it only in terms of chastising their high school peers who stayed home. If you build a society based on the assumption everyone will simply move and re-skill to the regions with economic opportunity, you get a lot of regions of bitter people who stayed behind somewhere and watched their local economy get destroyed by trade…

It's strange the level of distrust in the west over institutions that the majority of the world find completely uncontroversial. It takes a village to raise a child, and in a world without villages families are the biggest support system most people have. I have a feeling this is another instance of the minority being louder than the majority.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#82

Post by thebradbain »

emodendroket wrote: post #18
HPsquared wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the "move around a lot" people don't talk much with the "don't move around much" people, and vice-versa.

When I used to live in Massachusetts I found it boggling how many people had never lived anywhere else. Southern California, where I now live, I think actually has a narrow transplant majority.

Which is fascinating, because while we know California is technically net-outward migration (people moving to other states), the demographic of people net MOVING to California is by people in the top 5%.

California is essentially gentrifying at the state level with wealthy transplants, pushing working and middle class people who grew up here out of the state.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-income-t...

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#83

Post by keewee7 »

Ten miles is huge in an increasingly urbanized world. Within a ten miles radius from where I lived in 2017 there was some of the most expensive housing in the world and ghettos with weekly gang shootings. However the city I lived in is objectively regarded as one of the best places to live in the world: Copenhagen, Denmark.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#84

Post by piyh »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #78
nerdjon wrote: post #53

This just seems insane to me. I purposefully graduated early from highschool (1 semester less and it only worked because of where my birthday was) to move 853 miles from where I grew up to where I currently live. My partner did a similar move (before we met). When I talk to most of my friends it is a similar story. I just can't imagine not wanting to explore a new area and have distance from your parents. I love my p…

Here's my 2c (I'm 30 for the record): I was born in a flyover state. There's ~no coding jobs here, and the ones that are here, pay pittances compared to anywhere not adjacent to a (feed)corn field. I moved 250 miles away (to the other side of my state... dang is the US huge) to take a tech job that payed closer to what coastal companies will pay. The next step was probably to move to Seattle or SF and take a "real" t…

Seconding this as my exact scenario too.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#85

Post by dendrite9 »

Gigachad wrote: post #28
mikrl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, moving is related to aspiration. If I stayed where I grew up I’d honestly likely be an opioid statistic and definitely not doing anything worthwhile with my life. I still keep in touch with a few people from youth who didn’t ruin their lives, and I’m the standout success story despite being the socially awkward and poor one. Moving thousands of miles has changed my life in ways I’d never dream of, s…

So moving was more related to the starting location being bad. If you already grew up in a good area then you’d want to stay.

I consider myself lucky that my parents looked around and chose a place with many positive attributes, and they were able to make a living there. I haven't felt a big need to move from here, though I lived away during college.

Of course if I had a bad relationship with my family, or had wildly different interests/beliefs I would likely want to move away.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#86

Post by trgn »

mikrl wrote: post #3
thepangolino wrote: post #2

That's a pretty common statistics all around the world. People connect to their the place they grew up in and people they grew up with.

In my experience, moving is related to aspiration. If I stayed where I grew up I’d honestly likely be an opioid statistic and definitely not doing anything worthwhile with my life. I still keep in touch with a few people from youth who didn’t ruin their lives, and I’m the standout success story despite being the socially awkward and poor one. Moving thousands of miles has changed my life in ways I’d never dream of, s…

But most people actually live in the big metros. If you grew up in LA, Chicago, Atlanta, ... area, why would you really need to move? Unless you have a highly specific skillset, most people can have a fine career locally. High mobility can be a sign of weak local job markets, this is the dominant view. You can also take an optimistic view; low mobility is a sign of sustained local wealth accumulation and strong local job markets.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#87

Post by Yhippa »

parker_mountain wrote: post #76
fullshark wrote: post #37

A lot of upperwardly mobile, ambitious people don't realize this, or they generally understand it only in terms of chastising their high school peers who stayed home. If you build a society based on the assumption everyone will simply move and re-skill to the regions with economic opportunity, you get a lot of regions of bitter people who stayed behind somewhere and watched their local economy get destroyed by trade…

Part of it, as well, is that a lot of these regions that people moved out of are the suburbs. Many suburbs are not sustainable, and are degrading.

> Many suburbs are not sustainable, and are degrading.

Genuinely curious: what is the basis for that claim? Even if you don't cite a source.

Edit: these responses are very insightful. Thank you all for the responses.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#88

Post by rhino369 »

hnuser847 wrote: post #30
perardi wrote: post #21

We have become an increasingly urbanized country. Lots and lots of people in massive metro areas—think of the hypersprawl around Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, LA… Living 10 miles away from where you grew up around Chicago can put you in a total different socioeconomic level of suburb.

Yep, I live in Chicago and I'm about 10 miles from my parents' house, as the crow flies. I have at various times in my life regretted not moving around and living in different cities, but I didn't feel the urgency to move a thousand miles away from home since I grew up next to one of the largest cities in the US. I imagine that if I had grown up in a small town, like my wife, moving far away from home would have been…

I left Chicagoland and wish I could go back.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#89

Post by fdsfdxfvcx »

saraton1n wrote: post #34

I was a military child, and so I moved around my whole life. My best friend has lived their whole life in the city I live in now. Sometimes I get a little jealous because I don't have any heart-connection to any place. Most of the friends I regularly talk to are people I've met within the last 5 years, and I still don't have any still-standing friendships from the time before my dad retired. But also, I cannot imagin…

had that too, the place my dad retired to became my "hometown"

having said that, as i got older and started having kids, i did move back to that hometown. i honestly did enjoy moving every 1-3 years as a kid, but my wife had a similar experience and did not enjoy it. now my kids have a home town and can see both sets of their grandparents every week or so. its also pretty cool taking my kids to the same restaurants and places that i went to when i was younger. based on how much trouble my 5 year old had with this move its not something i want to subject them to any more times(shes happy about it now and we wanted to get it over with before kindergarden etc starts). people like us who had a positive outcome from moving constantly are the outliers i think, its better to give the kids a sense of continuity.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#90

Post by dibt »

This is is an important detail missing from the title:

"Childhood locations are measured at age 16 and locations in young adulthood are measured at age 26."

"By linking young adults to their parents, we can see that this migration is primarily driven by individuals who grew up in affluent families."

It's not all young adults, just a specific demographic we would expect to move away farther from home.

Many people in this thread are using this to confirm their bias that it says something about the young adults. The title is doing more harm than good.

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