Reasons for Moves to and From a Central City Area

C HANGE of residence is a subject of strong and growing interest in urban sociology. This interest is based on the fact that mobility is the proximal cause of many changes in the demography and social structure of urban areas. A common technique used to study the reasons for individual and family mobility is to ask people the reasons for their contemplated or completed moves. This paper reports the results of such a study in a central city area. It suggests that the cause of mobility may be different for moves of different lengths and different directions, and thus integrates some of the simpler theories advanced in the literature. Perhaps the best-known explanation for residential mobility is change in family size. In a study of moves among residents of four census tracts in Philadelphia, Rossi finds "the major function of mobility to be the process by which families adjust their housing to their housing needs that are generated by the shifts in family composition that accompany life cycle change."' As children are added to the young household, housing needs increase and the young family moves to larger quarters. When the children leave the household at adulthood, housing needs decline and the aging family moves to smaller quarters. A different interpretation of the reasons for residential mobility is presented by Whitney and Grigg,2 who studied moves of a sample of college students' families, as reported by the students. Dividing moves according to whether or not they crossed a county line, Whitney and Grigg found that 90 percent of the "distance" moves could be classed as "economic"-to seek or accept job advancement. On the other hand, 90 percent of the "local" moves were undertaken for "status" reasons, based on the prior experience of job advancement. A third set of reasons for mobility comes from studies of suburban migration, such as those of Tableman,3 Dewey,4 and Bell.5 The variables cited in these studies are style-of-life preferences, such as the desire for home ownership and country life. Additional hypotheses concerning reasons for mobility can be found in the literature of ecological correlation, where associations appear between mobility and social class, national origin, mental and physical health, and the like. The multiplicity of suggested causes of mobility, and the apparent contradictions between simple explanations suggest that residential mobility must be treated as a complex phenomenon. However, these previous studies suggest that the problem can be simplified by classifying moves according to distance and direction. The following analysis is intended to demonstrate the utility of such a classification. A sample of residents of a central area in Boston were asked the whereabouts of their immediately previous dwelling. On the basis of their answers, respondents were divided into local movers, centralizers, and distance migrants. Local movers were those who had moved from another house within a district including the area studied, about one square mile in extent, and "naturally" bounded by parks, a river, business and industry. Centralizers were those who had moved from any of the less central parts of the Boston Standard Metropolitan Area into the central area studied. Those moving from outside the Boston area were classified as distance migrants. All residents were * A paper read at the fifty-sixth annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, St. Louis, Missouri, August 30-September 2, 1961. 1 Peter H. Rossi, Why Families Move (Glencoe: Free Press, 1956). 2 Vincent H. Whitney and Charles M. Grigg, "Mobility Among Students' Families," American Sociological Review 23 (1958), pp. 643-652. Also Gerald R. Leslie and Arthur H. Richardson, "Life-Cycle, Career Pattern and Decision to Move," American Sociological Review 26(1961) pp. 894-902. I Betty Tableman, "Intra-Community Migration in the Flint Metropolitan District," (Mimeographed report, Social Science Research Project, Institute for Human Adjustment, University of Michigan, 1948). 4 Richard Dewey, "Peripheral Expansion in Milwaukee County," American Journal of Sociology LIII (1948), 417-422. 6 Wendell Bell, "Familism and Suburbanization," Rural Sociology 21 (1956), pp. 276-283.