Most Americans are descended from people who picked up and moved to the United States in search of better lives if they themselves aren't the ones who immigrated.

For a long time as a society, we maintained those

peripatetic impulses. Americans frequently changed neighborhoods or cities or even states

in search of better homes, schools, and jobs. As recently as 1960, one out of every five Americans

could be expected to change addresses in any given year. But by 2023, that number had

plummeted to just one in 13. From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. There are

multiple reasons why our geographic mobility has declined. And if you're thriving where you are,

you may see no reason to undertake the trouble of relocating.

But millions of us are not thriving.

Economic mobility is moving in the wrong direction for many Americans.

And my guest believes that our falling rates of geographic mobility are both a cause and a symptom of these trends.

Yoni Applebaum is Deputy Executive Director of the Atlantic and author of Stuck, How the Privileged and the Property Broke the Engine of American Opportunity.

Yoni, welcome to think.

So glad to be with you.

Everybody is familiar with the nation of immigrants' way of defining this country.

But for a long time, we were recognized throughout the world as a society

that embraced domestic migration. And it wasn't just westward expansion, was it?

Yeah, we're a nation of migrants. People in America moved a lot in the 19th century, probably one

out of three Americans moved every year.

And they moved in search of better opportunities, better housing, and new lives.

And that really was the key to the American character.

At least that's what Americans felt.

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