The idea that people should be able to choose their own communities––instead of being stuck where they are born––is a distinctly American innovation, and in many ways the foundation for the country’s prosperity and democracy. But now, as deputy executive editor Yoni Appelbaum writes in The Atlantic’s March cover story, Americans are much less apt to switch houses or neighborhoods or cities than they used to be, and are “Stuck in Place.” This sharp decline in geographic mobility, he argues, is the single most important social change of the past half century. Appelbaum also explains why progressives are the ones standing in the way of reviving American mobility and restoring the American dream.
Appelbaum’s cover story is adapted from his forthcoming book, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity (publishing February 18).
Appelbaum writes, “Entrepreneurship, innovation, growth, social equality—the most appealing features of the young republic all traced back to this single, foundational fact: Americans were always looking ahead to their next beginning, always seeking to move up by moving on. But over the past 50 years, this engine of American opportunity has stopped working. Americans have become less likely to move from one state to another, or to move within a state, or even to switch residences within a city. In the 1960s, about one out of every five Americans moved in any given year—down from one in three in the 19th century, but a frenetic rate nonetheless. In 2023, however, only one in 13 Americans moved.”
Appelbaum continues, “Today, America is often described as suffering from a housing crisis, but that’s not quite right. In many parts of the country, housing is cheap and abundant, but good jobs and good schools are scarce. Other areas are rich in opportunities but short on affordable homes. That holds true even within individual cities, neighborhood by neighborhood. As a result, many Americans are stranded in communities with flat or declining prospects, and lack the practical ability to move across the tracks, the state, or the country—to choose where they want to live. Those who do move are typically heading not to the places where opportunities are abundant, but to those where housing is cheap. Only the affluent and well educated are exempt from this situation; the freedom to choose one’s city or community has become a privilege of class.”
His cover story argues that reviving mobility offers the best hope of restoring the American promise. But it is largely self-described progressives who stand in the way. Appelbaum writes that we should “blame Jane Jacobs,” whose writings and activism in her West Village neighborhood in New York played a pivotal role in shifting American attitudes toward the preservation of buildings and neighborhoods, and away from growth: “American mobility has been slowly strangled by generations of reformers, seeking to reassert control over their neighborhoods and their neighbors.” Appelbaum concludes that “whatever its theoretical aspirations, in practice, progressivism has produced a potent strain of NIMBYism, a defense of communities in their current form against those who might wish to join them. Mobility is what made this country prosperous and pluralistic, diverse and dynamic. Now progressives are destroying the very force that produced the values they claim to cherish.”
Appelbaum concludes that any serious effort to restore mobility should follow three simple principles: consistency (rules that apply uniformly across a city will tend to produce neighborhoods with diverse populations and uses); tolerance (organic growth is messy and unpredictable, but the places that thrive over the long term are those that empower people to make their own decisions, and to build and adapt structures to suit their needs); and abundance (the best way to solve a supply crunch is to add supply and in places that are attractive and growing, so that housing becomes a springboard).
Yoni Appelbaum’s “Stuck in Place” was published today at TheAtlantic.com. Please reach out with any questions or requests to interview Appelbaum on his reporting.
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