Paul Krugman has commented about this phenomenon as well. Based on the literature he says it is due to lack of regional specialization. Interstate goods shipping has also declined. This is mentioned in the article but dismissed.
Personally, having recently conducted an interstate move, I think it is a combination of the lack of specialization (My career as a programmer was going fine elsewhere) and cost of living as mentioned in the article. Moving is expensive, especially when you have an underwater house, and it's hard to leave your social network behind. If you're moving for a raise from $18/hour in Ohio to $25/hour in San Francisco, that's not worth it.
"[W]ithin the United States, at least, people are moving less — a lot less. Greg Kaplan and Sam Schulhofer-Wohl (pdf) say that interstate mobility has been cut in half over the past 20 years. And interestingly, they suggest that this is in part because regions have become more similar: increasingly, different parts of the country are producing the same kinds of things and employing the same kind of people, so that there’s less reason to move.
This story actually matches up with what the new economic geography literature says, which is that regional specialization peaked around a century ago and has been declining since."
Comments
Paul Krugman has commented about this phenomenon as well. Based on the literature he says it is due to lack of regional specialization. Interstate goods shipping has also declined. This is mentioned in the article but dismissed.
Personally, having recently conducted an interstate move, I think it is a combination of the lack of specialization (My career as a programmer was going fine elsewhere) and cost of living as mentioned in the article. Moving is expensive, especially when you have an underwater house, and it's hard to leave your social network behind. If you're moving for a raise from $18/hour in Ohio to $25/hour in San Francisco, that's not worth it.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/america-is-flat/
"[W]ithin the United States, at least, people are moving less — a lot less. Greg Kaplan and Sam Schulhofer-Wohl (pdf) say that interstate mobility has been cut in half over the past 20 years. And interestingly, they suggest that this is in part because regions have become more similar: increasingly, different parts of the country are producing the same kinds of things and employing the same kind of people, so that there’s less reason to move.
This story actually matches up with what the new economic geography literature says, which is that regional specialization peaked around a century ago and has been declining since."