Preface To The Suburbs: Where You From?

According to a Pew Research Center poll from 2008, "more than six-in-ten adults (63%) have moved to a new community at least once in their lives, while 37% have never left their hometowns."

There's more: "The most rooted region" is the Midwest - 46% of adult residents there have spent their entire lives in one community. The West is the "least rooted" - 30% have stayed in their hometown. Where I'm from, the South (if you consider Texas the South, & many Texans do) is 36%, while the East is 38%.

I live in the Midwest now, & it does seem like a lot of the people I meet are from Lexington. However, the poll data says that Texas is a much more "sticky" state - more people who were born there still live there (75%) than people in Kentucky (62%).

More more: 77% of people who went to college & graduated have moved around, while 56% of those who just finished high school or less stayed in their same communities.

Might it be because one often goes away to college & therefore realize there is more out there? There's a reason the word provincial has the word "province" in it.

I dunno. The poll allowed for "stayers" to have the exemption of military duty & college, so some people just really love their hometowns.

The study, which is now three years old, says that the American population is settling down - only 11% of respondents had moved in the last year, which is the lowest amount since researchers started tracking that data in the 1940s. But that was right before the The Great Recession started - I believe more Americans are moving now.

I don't have any data to back that up, though!