Moving is pain in the ass. You need a reason: bigger family, great upgrade, or economic necessity. The U.S. birth rate crashed between 1960 and 1975, declinin

Moving is pain in the ass. You need a reason: bigger family, great upgrade, or economic necessity. The U.S. birth rate crashed between 1960 and 1975, declining over 25%. That removes a lot of moves into bigger houses during that period. For some reason, new housing starts were below historical averages from 1990-2000. Is that a reflection of poor demand, or lack of good space? If the latter, it could reduce the availability of housing "upgrades" which would create incentives for one to move. In other words, all of the good areas have already been built, and new sprawl in suburban area A is just as good as old sprawl in suburban area B. The housing bubble certainly hurt mobility post-2007. When it costs you $50K to move out of your underwater house, that new opportunity on the other coast starts to lose luster. A rush to the rental market similarly caused rents to rise across the nation, so both homeowners and renters were disinclined to move. When economists talk about home ownership causing unemployment (in the sense that some jobs go unfilled), this is what they mean. However, this phenomenon may not be large enough to make a dent in the overall trend. Over the decades, I would credit decreased transportation costs for some of this trend. You don't need to move your kids near to their grandparents when jet travel is relatively cheap. Nor do you need to move within a given state given the continuously improving highway system and relatively cheap costs per mile driven. Finally, the decline in American manufacturing may play a role here. Factories are typically located in particular regions of the county, but service and technology industries are relatively dispersed. Therefore, if you don't want to move from Boston, or Texas, or wherever, you don't need to if you're not in the manufacturing sector.