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Mobility: A culture on the move

COMMUNITY INDICATORS  

                                                                                                 

Community Indicators are intended to stimulate thoughtful dialogue about your community, they can help identify potential issues, opportunities and problems facing your community. This communication piece is also intended to increase use and understanding of readily accessible demographic data on the web.

                                         

Issue 1, January 2003

By: Andy Lewis

James Jasper, in his recent book, Restless Nation1, notes that Americans move more often than any other culture except nomadic tribes. Unlike these tribes, which move the entire village, Americans move as individuals on average every 5 years. In a typical 5-year period, only half the population (53%) is living in the same place at the end as at the beginning. Jasper theorizes that Americans are defined by their desire and compulsion to be on the move.  

 

Recently there has been a lot of attention devoted to the notion that Wisconsin is spending a lot of money on higher education only to lose its graduates and their earning power to other states. "Brain Drain" is currently on the minds of elected officials, economic development leaders, and administrators of higher education.

 

In a typical 5-year period, only half the population is living in the same place at the end as at the beginning.

I cannot help but remember the words of a friend and community leader in the City of Lancaster. He was a retired businessperson who referred to himself as a "professional volunteer". He was both a professional, and an active volunteer, but he was also insightful. In regards to youth, he said he never worried about the high school graduates moving away from town. He felt they needed to explore the world as he had. He supported investments in education, because he felt every youth was entitled access to the tools that would determine their success. On the other hand, he was emphatic about the point of building a community that youth would want to come back to.

 

This brings me to the central them of this article. If we recognize the mobility of Americans, we can't lose sight of the fact that we need to build communities where people want to stay and economic opportunities are only part of the equation. Most of the arguments focusing on brain drain point to the lack of high paying jobs as the reason for graduates leaving the state. While that is certainly an important piece in the puzzle, clearly many other factors determine whether people stay or move.

 

Hal Kane in Triumph of the Mundane 2, says " In recent years, not only has the desire for greater creature comforts and material success come to dominate the goals and values of most Americans, but also a desire for more speed, for frequent new jobs and moves to new homes, and, by surprisingly many people, for places where they can live alone. In the pithy language of the bumper sticker, 'He who dies with the most toys wins;' but now that bumper sticker reads: he who goes the fastest wins, he who lives alone wins, he who changes his work the most often wins."

 

What challenges does our mobility and pursuit of wealth pose to building communities? If people assume that they will be moving every five years, what is the likelihood that they will want to build relationships and ties to the community? If high paying jobs are the primary factor for attracting residents, how long will those residents stay before another high paying job presents itself? Kane wonders aloud, "Do people who move often and who let their friends drift away have less personality? Are Americans losing responsibility as they find that they do not have to stand by their employers, their homes, or even the friends of their early years? . . . If we focus on possessions, then will we tend to look at nature as a collection of objects for us to use rather than as a rich, integrated ecology that is most valuable when it remains intact?" As community development professionals, we need to understand the mobility issue and begin to build strategies to address it.

 

If people assume that they will be moving every five years, what is the likelihood that they will want to build relationships and ties to the community?

I began to wonder whether Wisconsinites are in fact any more mobile than the rest of the general population. Could mobility be an indicator of how satisfied residents are with the quality of life in this state? If certain communities had residents that stayed longer than average, would this be an indicator that there were factors at work that were successful in competing with our urge to move? The 2000 census provides some insight into those thoughts.

 

Table 1

 

For a copy of an Excel worksheet that can easily create a customized chart similar to Table 1 (with a drop down menu of municipalities) see:   http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/documents/medresidency.xls or, e-mail Andy Lewis at: ablewis@facstaff.wisc.edu

For a quick demonstration on how to download and manipulate this data from the Census Factfinder web site, please view the Power Point presentation on the CCED web site at:

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/documents/resdemo.ppt

 

or, e-mail Andy Lewis at:

ablewis@facstaff.wisc.edu

The Census Quick Table H39 in the 2000 (SF3) file provides data on the median number of years in which householders have lived in their current dwelling (See Table 1). For the State of Wisconsin, the median year for all units was 1994, meaning that half the residents in the state had lived in their current dwelling for 6 years or less (The census was conducted in 2000). However when looking at this same data for villages and cities, 69% of the communities had a median which was higher than 6 years (Ranging from a low of 3 years in communities like Madison, Fitchburg, Menominee, Pewaukee, Somerset and Whitewater to a high of 30 years in the village of Brokaw!). In this example, Burnett County residents appear to stay longer in their current dwelling (a median of 8 years). All three villages in the County had medians lower than the County average meaning that rural residents tended to stay longer than their counterparts in the villages.

 

 

At first glance, it would appear that Wisconsinites are less likely to move than the general U.S. population. However, its clear that people are not leaving communities like Madison and Fitchburg in large numbers (Both communities had a median of 3 years). Rather, they have attracted large numbers of new residents that drives the median down for those communities. Other communities may in fact be losing population and have only long-time residents remaining.

 

Interestingly, when we compare population growth between 1990 and 2000, Burnett County's population was on the rise (See Table 2). Therefore, despite the influx of new residents, the median number of years spent in the current dwelling remained higher than the national or state median. This phenomenon might be better understood by examining the year in which the householders moved into their current dwelling (See Table 3). Clearly, there are many long-time Burnett County residents who have stayed in the same dwelling for many years. The percentage of residents who have lived in their current dwelling for 10-30 years is higher in Burnett County than it is for the State or the Nation.

 

TABLE 2

For a copy of an Excel worksheet that can easily create a customized chart similar to Table 2 (with a drop down menu of municipalities) see:   http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/documents/popchange.xls or, e-mail Andy Lewis at: ablewis@facstaff.wisc.edu

 

 

 

TABLE 3

For a copy of an Excel worksheet that can easily create a customized chart similar to Table 3 (with a drop down menu of municipalities) see:   http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/documents/yearmoved.xls or, e-mail Andy Lewis at: ablewis@facstaff.wisc.edu

 

Mapping the mobility data also shows some interesting trends (See Table 4). While the Midwest in general appears to be less mobile than the west and east coasts, its important not to lose sight of the fact that half of the Wisconsin residents have lived in their current dwelling for less than 6 years (Table 1).

 

TABLE 4

This map was created on the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder web site using the thematic maps option (available for only a select number of tables). For this particular graphic, select "Percent of persons 5 years and over who lived in a different house in 1995 (2000) from the list of tables at:

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/TMSubjectAllThemesServlet?_ts=56991746895

If the "thematic maps" option on the Census web site does not meet your needs, Extension faculty and staff can get free copies of the ESRI GIS software from: Kurt Zeiler, kkzeiler@facstaff.wisc.edu   He creates copies of the software (CDs) and sends them to users.   The ESRI products available on the contract can be found at:
http://www.uwsa.edu/olit/gis/sum99.htm

 

So what can we do with this knowledge?

 

First of all, we can educate our local units of government, businesses and organizations about the reality of our mobile population. If half of the population has lived in their current dwelling for less than 6 years, how often do we need to recruit people to join civic groups in the community? How often do we need to educate the public about city ordinances, and practices that long time residents assume everyone knows? How often do businesses need to remind people about who they are and what they sell? Clearly, we could be developing educational programs that build the capacity of organizations to understand such things as marketing strategies and volunteer recruitment.

 

If half of the population has lived in their current dwelling for less than 6 years, how often do we need to recruit people to join civic groups in the community? How often do we need to educate the public about city ordinances, and practices that long time residents assume everyone knows? How often do businesses need to remind people about who they are and what they sell?

The point is that too often, many of our small communities assume that there is little change taking place in our communities. The fact is that Wisconsin seems to be changing less than the rest of the country but we are still a population on the move. If we want to engage people in community issues, can we afford to wait a year or two to invite new residents to get involved in local government, youth organizations, civic clubs, churches, and community activities? How many communities still have a "Welcome Wagon" or similar organization that welcomes and orients new residents to the community? Has your community developed a strategy which capitalizes on those people in the community that know who's new in the community (To name a few: realtors, the "cable guy", phone companies, meter readers, and the tax assessor).

 

And finally, if Wisconsin is really concerned about retaining its well educated youth, how many communities are building strategies that engage youth and make youth feel part of the community? As my professional volunteer in Lancaster pointed out, are we building communities that youth will want to come back to? Build on the following short list of strategies to get your communities headed in the right direction:

 

1James M. Jasper, Restless Nation: Starting Over in America, ISBN: 0-226-39478-6, 2000 for an excerpt on the web, see:   http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/394786.html

2Hal Kane, Triumph of the Mundane, Island Press, Washington D.C.   For an excerpt on the web, see:   http://www.halkane.com/triumph.htm