Modern Migration

Today at the family get together in Atlanta I was talking to favored relation Barbara about family migration. Barbara's family is from Michigan, and they all managed to migrate to North Carolina and (except for her) migrate back.


The same thing happened to every branch of my family - the pre-hyphen family spread from Dallas to New Mexico, Atlanta and San Antonio; the post-hyphen family spread from Ohio to Caifornia and Texas; my non-hyphen family spread from Long Island to Atlanta, N.C., Texas, and Manhattan; and my direct family went from San Antonio to Santa Fe, Florida and New York.

What's going on? Family migration must be a modern invention. Are we running from something or to something?

Barbara thinks it has to do with people selecting places to live based on their interests. A lot of people she met in Oregon, for example, had moved there from out of state because they loved being outdoors. I think it's because travel and communication (and so moving) are getting easier - you don't have to lose touch with your family if you just want to, eh, get a little distance from them.