Abstract
The United States and Canada are historically two of the most highly mobile populations in the world. Ever-evolving patterns of migration have continually shaped and reshaped demographic, social, and economic dynamics in North America while also being impacted by them. Over time, data describing migration patterns have grown more sophisticated, but a comprehensive theory of migration remains elusive. In this chapter, we utilize rich data from the census and supplemental national surveys to describe historical and contemporary patterns of geographic mobility in North America. In addition, we assess the interaction of the migration processes with broader social dynamics with the aim of pushing forward the theoretical frameworks for understanding geographic mobility. We argue that despite the wide recognition by migration scholars that people move for a variety of reasons, analyses of North American migration patterns have been dominated by economic explanations. In contrast, we describe how major migration and residential mobility patterns through North American history – including westward expansion, urbanization, The Great Migration, regional decentralization, and suburbanization – can be better understood by employing both economic and non-economic explanations.
Partial support for this research came from a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant, R24 HD042828, to the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology at the University of Washington .
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
We use the term “geographic mobility”, or simply, “mobility,” to refer to all types of moves, “migration” to refer to long-distance moves (inter-county, inter-metropolitan area, or inter-state), and “residential mobility” or “short-distance mobility” to refer to local moves (intra-county or intra-metropolitan area).
- 2.
The American Community Survey data used to calculate lifetime mobility are based on whether individuals moved in a 1-year period. Some individuals may have moved more than once in the 1-year period. Thus, a more accurate statement is that a person could expect to make one or more moves in 11.7 years of their life, rather than the actual number of moves (U.S. Census Bureau 2012a; Long 1988).
- 3.
In 1790, the date of the first census in the United State s , the population center was estimated to be located in Kent County, Maryland at 39.27500° North Latitude and 76.18667° West Longitude.
- 4.
We have included two trend lines for Whites in Fig. 19.9 – one including the state of Florida and one that excludes the state. Florida experienced patterns of net-migration during these decades that deviated from those that were typical of other southern states. Especially during the second stage of the Great Migration, 1940 through 1970, many white migrants, from the South and elsewhere, headed to Florida. Including Florida in our estimates of net migration and net migration rates understates the extent to which whites were leaving other southern states during these decades. The information for 1910 through 1940 has been drawn from Lee et al. (1957), Tables 1.11 and 1.13 for native whites and Tables 1.14 and 1.16 for non-whites. The information for 1950 through 1970 was obtained from ICPSR dataset number 8493 which includes estimates of net migration, net migration rates, and population, by race for 1950 through 1970. The latter estimates for whites refer to all whites, not just native whites.
- 5.
The housing development company Levitt and Sons built the first “Levittown” on an expanse of land 25 miles east of Manhattan. Levitt and Sons were pioneers in building homes using mass production techniques, and the first Levittown was the largest housing development ever put up by a single builder. The second major project was located near Philadelphia, in lower Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The third Levittown was built in the 1960s in Willingboro, New Jersey , within distant commuting range of Philadelphia. Levitt and Son’s housing developments were widely publicized, and soon builders in every large metropolitan area were adopting similar mass production techniques (Jackson 1985; Harris 2010).
- 6.
Data are for persons age 25–44. The comparable ratio of suburb-to-central-city movers to central-city-to-suburb movers was 1–2.7 in Montreal and 1–1.8 in Vancouver (Turcotte and Vezina 2010).
References
Beauregard, R. A. (2001). Federal policy and urban decline: A case of government complicity? Housing Policy Debate, 12, 129–151.
Blackmon, D. A. (2008). Slavery by another name. The re-enslavement of Black people in America from the Civil war to World War II. New York: Doubleday.
Bowles, G. K., Tarver, J. D., Beale, C. L., & Lee, E. S. (1975). Net migration of the population by age, sex, and race, 1950–1970. Athens, GA: Gladys Bowles, University of Georgia [producer]. Ann Arbor: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1990. doi:10.3886/ICPSR08493.v1.
Brown, W. M., & Scott, D. M. (2012). Cities and growth: Human capital location choice: Accounting for amenities and thick labour markets. The Canadian Economy in Transition Series. Catalogue no. 11-622-M, no. 27. Statistics Canada.
Carter, S. B., Gartner, S. S., Haines, M., Olmstead, R., Alan, L., Sutch, R., & Wright, G. (2006). Historical statistics of the United States: Earliest times to the present millennial edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chagnon, J., & Milan, A. (2011). Population growth: Canada, provinces and territories, 2010. Component of statistics Canada Catalogue no. 91-209-X. Statistics Canada.
Charles, C. Z. (2006). Won’t you be my neighbor? Race, class, and residence in Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Clark, W. A. V. (2009). Changing residential preferences across income, education, and age findings from the multi-city study of urban inequality. Urban Affairs Review, 44(3), 334–355.
Coffey, W. J. (1994). The evolution of Canada’s metropolitan economies. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy.
Collins, W. J. (1997). When the tide turned: Immigration and the delay of the great black migration. Journal of Economic History, 57(3), 607–632.
Cooke, T. J. (2012). Internal migration in decline. The Professional Geographer. doi:10.1080/00330124.2012.724343.
Cox, W. (2012). Special report, census 2011: Urban dispersion in Canada. New Geography. http://www.newgeography.com/content/002672-special-report-census-2011-urban-dispersion-canada. Accessed 5 Feb 2013.
Crowder, K. (2001). Racial stratification in the actuation of mobility expectations: Microlevel impacts of racially restrictive housing markets. Social Forces, 79(4), 1377–1396.
Crowder, K., & Downey, L. (2010). Interneighborhood migration, race, and environmental hazards: Modeling microlevel processes of environmental inequality. American Journal of Sociology, 115(4), 1110–1149.
Crowder, K., & South, S. J. (2005). Race, class, and changing migration patterns between poor and nonpoor neighborhoods. American Journal of Sociology, 110(6), 1715–1763.
Crowder, K., & South, S. J. (2008). Spatial dynamics of white flight: The effects of local and extralocal racial conditions on neighborhood out-migration. American Sociological Review, 73(5), 792–812.
Crowder, K., Pais, J., & South, S. J. (2012). Metropolitan constraints, neighborhood diversity, and household migration. American Sociological Review, 77(3), 325–353.
De Jong, G., Graefe, D. R., & St. Pierre, T. (2005). Welfare reform and interstate migration of poor families. Demography, 42(3), 469–496.
Deane, G. (1990). Mobility and adjustments: Paths to the resolution of residential stress. Demography, 27(1), 65–79.
Ehrenhalt, A. (2012). The great inversion and the future of the American city. New York: Knopf.
Eldridge, H. T. (1964). A cohort approach to the analysis of migration differentials. Demography, 1, 212–219.
Ellis, M. (2012). Reinventing US internal migration studies in the age of international migration. Population, Space, and Place, 18(2), 196–208.
Ferrie, J. P. (2006). Internal migration. In S. B. Carter, S. S. Gartner, M. R. Haines, A. L. Olmstead, R. Sutch, & G. Wright (Eds.), Historical statistics of the United States, earliest times to the present: Millennial edition (pp. 1–489–1–494). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fischer, C. (2011). Made in America: A social history of American culture and character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Florida, R. L. (2002). The rise of the creative class: And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. New York: Basic Books.
Frey, W. H. (1987). Migration and depopulation of the metropolis: Regional restructuring or rural renaissance? American Sociological Review, 52(2), 240–257.
Frey, W. H. (2001). Melting pot suburbs: A census 2000 study of suburban diversity. Census 2000 Series. Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. Washington DC: Brookings Institution.
Frey, W. H. (2009). The great American slowdown: Regional and metropolitan dimensions. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Frey, W. H., & Berube, A. (2002). City families and suburban singles: An emerging household story from census 2000. Census 2000 Series. Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Frey, W. H., & Speare, A. (1992). The revival of metropolitan population growth in the United States: An assessment of findings from the 1990 census. Population and Development Review, 18(1), 129–146.
Gregory, J. (2005). The Southern diaspora: How the great migrations of black and white Southerners transformed America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Guest, A. M., & Brown, S. K. (2005). Population distribution and suburbanization. In D. L. Poston & M. Micklin (Eds.), Handbook of population (pp. 59–86). New York: Springer.
Hall, M., & Lee, B. (2010). How diverse are US suburbs? Urban Studies, 47(1), 3–28.
Harris, R. (2004). Creeping conformity: How Canada became suburban, 1990–1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Harris, D. (2010). Second suburb: Levittown, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Hautaniemi, S. I., Swedlund, A. C., & Anderton, D. L. (1999). Mill town mortality: Consequences of industrial growth in two nineteenth-century New England towns. Social Science History, 23(1), 1–23.
Hawley, A. H. (1971). Urban society: An ecological approach. New York: Wiley.
Heppen, J. (2009). Regional income convergence and a decennial core-periphery regionalization of the United States 1929–2000. In J. Heppen., & S. M. Otterstrom (Eds.), Geography, history, and the American political economy (pp. 165–182). Lanham: Lexington.
Hirschman, C., & Mogford, E. (2009). Immigration and the American industrial revolution from 1880 to 1920. Social Science Research, 38(4), 897–920.
Hobbs, F., & Stoops, N. U.S. Census. Bureau. (2002). Demographic trends in the 20th century (Census 2000 Special Report, Series CENSR-4). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Ihrke, D. K., & Faber, C. S. (2012). Geographical mobility: 2005 to 2010. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p20-567.pdf [Accessed March 24, 2013].
Jackson, K. T. (1985). Crabgrass frontier: The suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jargowsky, P. (2002). Sprawl, concentration of poverty, and urban inequality. In G. D. Squires (Ed.), Urban sprawl: Causes, consequences, and policy responses (pp. 39–71). Washington DC: Urban Institute Press.
Johnson, K. (2006). Demographic trends in rural and small town America. Reports on Rural America, 1(1), 1–35. Carsey Institute.
Johnson, K. M., Voss, P. R., Hammer, R. B., Fuguitt, G. V., & McNiven, S. (2005). Temporal and spatial variation in age-specific net migration in the United States. Demography, 42(4), 791–812.
Kennan, J., & Walker, J. (2011). The effect of expected income on individual migration decisions. Econometrica, 79(1), 211–251.
Ledent, J. (1990). Canada. In C. B. Nam, W. J. Serow, & D. F. Sly (Eds.), International handbook on internal migration (pp. 47–61). Westport: Greenwood Press.
Lee, E. S. (1966). A theory of migration. Demography, 3(1), 47–57.
Lee, E. S., Ann, R., Carol, P., & Easterlin, R. (1957). Population redistribution and economic growth, United States, 1870–1950 (Methodological considerations and reference tables, Vol. 1). Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society.
Lees, L., Tom, S., & Wyly, E. (2008). Gentrification. London: Routledge.
Lipton, G. S. (1984). An analysis of neighborhood condition and change in metropolitan areas. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Long, L. (1988). Migration and residential mobility in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Long, L. (1998). International perspectives on the residential mobility of America’s children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 54(4), 861–869.
Mandle, J. R. (1978). The roots of Black poverty: The Southern plantation economy after the Civil War. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mandle, J. R. (1992). Not slave, not free. The African American economic experience since the Civil War. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mann, C. C. (2005). 1491. New revelations of the Americas before Columbus. New York: Vintage Books.
McKenzie, B., & Rapino, M. (2011). Commuting in the United States: 2009. American Community Survey Reports. ACS-15. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.
Meuser, P. R., & Graves, P. E. (1995). Examining the role of economic opportunity and amenities in explaining population redistribution. Journal of Urban Economics, 37, 176–200.
Migration Policy Institute. (2012). Legal immigration to the United States: Fiscal years 1820 to 2011. Washington, DC. http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/charts/historic1.cfm. Accessed 8 May 2013.
Molloy, R., Smith, C. L., & Wozniak, A. K. (2011). Internal migration in the United States. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3), 173–196.
Morrison, P. S., & Clark, W. A. V. (2011). Internal migration and employment: Macro flows and micro motives. Environment and Planning A, 43(8), 1948–1964.
Nader, G. (1975). Cities of Canada. I: Theoretical, historical and planning perspectives. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada.
Nelson, K. P. (1988). Gentrification and distressed cities: An assessment of trends in intrametropolitan migration. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Papacostas, A. (2005). Eurobarometer 64.1: Mobility, food risk, smoking, AIDS prevention, and medical errors, September–October 2005. ICPSR04641-v2. Cologne, Germany: GESIS/Ann Arbor: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributors], 2010-04-26. doi:10.3886/ICPSR04641.v2.
Partridge, M. D., Rickman, D. S., Olfert, M. R., & Ali, K. (2012). Dwindling U.S. internal migration: Evidence of spatial equilibrium or structural shifts in local labor markets? Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42, 375–388.
Plane, D. A., Henrie, C. J., & Perry, M. J. (2005). Migration up and down the urban hierarchy and across the life course. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(43), 15313–15318.
Putnam, R. D. (2001). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Ransom, R. L., & Sutch, R. (2000). One kind of freedom. The economic consequences of emancipation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ravenstein, E. G. (1885). The laws of migration (part 1). Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 48(2), 167–235.
Ravenstein, E. G. (1889). The laws of migration (part 2). Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 52(2), 241–301
Rosenbloom, J. L., & Sundstrom, W. A. (2004). The decline and rise of interstate migration in the United States: Evidence from the IPUMS, 1850–1990. In A. J. Field (Ed.), Research in economic history (Vol. 22, pp. 289–325). San Diego: Elsevier.
Rossi, P. H. (1980). Why families move. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
Ruggles, S. J., Alexander, T., Genadek, K., Goeken, R., Schroeder, M. B., & Sobek, M. (2010). Integrated public use microdata series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
Schnore, L. F. (1957). Metropolitan growth and decentralization. American Journal of Sociology, 63(2), 171–180.
Schulman, B. J. (1991). From cotton belt to sunbelt: Federal policy, economic development, and the transformation of the south, 1938–1980. Durham: Duke University Press.
Schultz, T. W. (1961). Investment in human capital. American Economic Review, 51(1), 1–17.
Sjaastad, L. A. (1962). The costs and returns of human migration. Journal of Political Economy, 70(5, Part 2), 80–93.
Slater, T., Curran, W., & Lees, L. (2004). Gentrification research: New directions and critical scholarship. Environment and Planning A, 36(7), 1141–1150.
South, S. J., & Crowder, K. D. (1997). Residential mobility between cities and suburbs: Race, suburbanization, and back-to-the-city moves. Demography, 34(4), 525–538.
South, S. J., & Poston, D. L. (1982). The U.S. metropolitan system: Regional change, 1950–1970. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 18(2), 187–206.
Squires, G. D. (2002). Urban sprawl: Causes, consequences, and policy responses. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Statistics Canada. (1981–2006). Census of Canada. CANSIM (database). Using E-STAT (distributor). http://estat.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-win/cnsmcgi.pgm?Lang=E&ESTATFile=ESTAT/ENGLISH/SC_RR-eng.htm. Accessed 9 May 2013.
Statistics Canada. (2012). Ch. 24: Population and demography. In Canada yearbook 2011. Catalogue no. 11- 402–X. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-402-x/2011000/pdf/population-eng.pdf. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Sugrue, T. J. (1996). The origins of the urban crisis: Race and inequality in postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Taeuber, I. (1972). The changing distribution of the population of the United States in the twentieth century. In S. M. Mazie (Ed.), Population distribution and policy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Tolnay, S. E. (2003). The African American ‘Great Migration’ and beyond. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 209–232.
Tolnay, S. E., & Beck, E. M. (1995). A festival of violence: An analysis of Southern lynchings, 1882–1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Treyz, G. I., Rickman, D. S., Hunt, G. L., & Greenwood, M. J. (1993). The dynamics of U.S. internal migration. Review of Economics and Statistics, 75(2), 209–214.
Turcotte, M., & Vezina, M. (2010). Migration from central to surrounding municipalities in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Canadian Social Trends. Catalogue no. 11-008-X. Statistics Canada.
U.S. Census Bureau. (1950–2010). Current population survey data on geographical mobility/migration. http://www.census.gov/hhes/migration/data/cps.html. Accessed 9 May 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. (1960–2000). Decennial census data on geographical mobility/migration. http://www.census.gov/hhes/migration/data/decennial.html. Accessed 9 May 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. (1980–2010). State of residence by state of birth. http://www.census.gov/hhes/migration/about/placeofbirth.html. Accessed 9 May 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2012a). Calculating migration expectancy using ACS data. http://www.census.gov/hhes/migration/about/cal-mig-exp.html. Accessed 31 Mar 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2012b). Patterns of metropolitan and micropolitan population change: 2000 to 2010. http://www.census.gov/population/metro/data/pop_data.html. Accessed 24 Mar 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2012c). Geographical mobility: 2010 to 2011. Current population survey. http://www.census.gov/hhes/migration/data/cps/cps2011.html. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. (1985, 2011). American housing survey, national summary data. http://www.census.gov/housing/ahs/data/national.html. Accessed 9 May 2013.
Wardwell, J. M. (1980). Toward a theory of urban-rural migration in the developed world. In D. L. Brown & J. M. Wardwell (Eds.), New directions in urban-rural migration (pp. 71–118). New York: Academic.
Wuthnow, R. (1998). Loose connections. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Yaukey, D., & Anderton, D. (2001). Demography: The study of human population (2nd ed.). Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.
Zuiches, J. J. (1981). Residential preferences in the United States. In A. H. Hawley & S. Mills Mazie (Eds.), Nonmetropolitan America in transition (pp. 72–115). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Spring, A., Tolnay, S.E., Crowder, K. (2016). Moving for Opportunities? Changing Patterns of Migration in North America. In: White, M. (eds) International Handbook of Migration and Population Distribution. International Handbooks of Population, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7282-2_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7282-2_19
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-7281-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-7282-2
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)