The Social Geography of Interstate Mobility and Persistence

We introduce a new model of geographic mobility that maps the underlying contours of sociocultural space [in the United States] after purging the confounding effects of distance inertia contiguity and population size....We argue that known features of the social landscape should be entered explicitly into mobility specifications. This approach yields new insights into (1) the net holding power of regions subregions and states; (2) the effects of macro-level variables on propensities for immobility and exchange; and (3) influence of seemingly minor variations in the shape of regions on gross patterns of immobility and exchange. (EXCERPT)