In 1970, one in five Americans moved every year. Now it’s one in 13. What changed?

Berkeley Talks

In Berkeley Talks episode 225, The Atlantic journalists Yoni Appelbaum and Jerusalem Demsas discuss the decline of housing mobility in the United States and its impact on economic opportunity in the country.

Appelbaum, author of the 2025 book Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity, began by tracing the history of housing mobility in the U.S. and its rapid decline in recent decades. He noted that in the 19th century, one out of three Americans moved to a new residence every year, and as late as 1970, one in five did. Today, only one in 13 people in the U.S. pack up their things and find a new place to live on an annual basis.

“These constant moves in America, made possible by the constant construction of new housing, created a new kind of social order,” said Appelbaum, and most people “ended up better off for it.”

The sharp decline in residential relocation, he said, caused largely by rising housing costs and restrictive zoning, is a major driver of the decline of social mobility, “the largest and least remarked change in America of the last 50 years.”

Building on Appelbaum’s argument, Demsas said that exclusionary housing policies have shifted mobility from a widespread opportunity to a privilege for the affluent and well-educated.

“Most Americans no longer stand to gain by moving toward the places in this country that offer them the greatest opportunities — the greatest professional opportunities, the best education for their children,” said Demsas, author of the 2024 book On the Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy. Instead, they move toward affordability, she said, which deepens inequality and limits their potential for economic advancement.

The conversation, held in March 2025, was moderated by Paul Pierson, a UC Berkeley professor of political science and director of the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI). The event was co-sponsored by BESI and the Berkeley Center for American Democracy.

Watch a video of the conversation and read more about the speakers.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo by Daniel Abadia/Unsplash+

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