Are we mobile?

Posted by: velofellow on 31 October 2015

I was recently at a loose end and decided to look up a few university friends that I have l had lost touch with over the years. It is 40 years since I graduated and I have lived and worked in Portsmouth, Oxford, Birmingham, Newark and Nottingham. Now retired, I live in a sleepy village in Nottinghamshire. Not exactly globe trotting but some movement.

Whilst it is true that my sample was small, the majority of the people I contacted lived in the same town that they lived in in the 1970s. As an economist I wonder if this apparent lack of mobility is reflected in the rest of our society and is it having and adverse impact on the UK economy?

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by Bert Schurink

I have the feeling that people nowadays are more mobile then in the past. If I look in the Netherlands then it looks like most people move a couple of times in their lifetimes. Me being an extreme example as I am already quite long living in Germany and also spent time in Hong Kong...., so while I am a more extreme case, in general I think people are more mobile.

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by Huwge

fairly mobile: Mid- Wales to SE England (Suburbia) to Denmark to US to Germany

 

Many friends still in environs of school or Uni and others scattered to all 4 corners

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by Harry

Before I went self employed I moved according to where the next job was. Or I lived in rented accommodation. 

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by winkyincanada

New Zealand, Australia, UK and now Canada. So I've not really pushed the cultural extremes, but I have moved around a bit.

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by George F

I have never been resident more than fifty miles from where I was born. So not very mobile at all!

 

I would like to get back to near Hereford though and reduce the distance to less than ten miles!

 

ATB from George

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by osprey
Ten addresses so far but all within a few hundred km of each other. And the latest home I've occupied last 19 years… so not moved around a lot. (and still own the place where I grew up)
Posted on: 01 November 2015 by dayjay

My dad was in the RAF so I travelled aroudn Europe when I was a child buut as an adult the furthest I have lived from where I was born was twenty miles, so not mobile at all really.  The same applies to the majority of people I know - the live within the same town they lived in when they were children.

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by Innocent Bystander

A few hundred km would count as mobile in the UK (though not of course globe-trotting...

 

I grew up on the edge of London, and since leaving home at age 19 I've lived NE England, NW England, Home Counties and South Wales, and now on a moderately remote island. All moves for career progression. longest period in one place 13 years, shortest 1 year,

 

Meanwhile I haven't always stay put in each area: since leaving my childhood home I've  lived in 8 houses (as a house buyer), and 3 rented flats.

 

As an oblique observation, the first house I bought in outer London cost just under £10k in 1975, and is probably worth £450k today. If I'd stayed put more I would probably have made enough from property to have retired by now!

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by Bruce Woodhouse

Born Essex, University of Nottingham, work N Yorkshire since then.

 

A gradual gravitation northwards, quality of both work and living environment being the pull against a complete lack of affection for the area of my birth. I have been in the same job for nearly 22years; continuity of care is one of the greatest satisfactions. I do feel distant from my parents as they age, they are a long drive away still in Essex. Cannot be helped; they would never move North as they consider it a lawless, frozen wasteland anywhere above about Leicester.

 

Skipton where I work is in many ways still partly an old-fashioned community. It is not rare for me to look after 3 (and sometimes 4) generations still living within a few miles of each other. I am not suggesting it is some rural backwater of straw-chewing hicks but it does still have a sense if identity and stability that I like.

 

Bruce

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by Pev
Originally Posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
 they would never move North as they consider it a lawless, frozen wasteland anywhere above about Leicester.

 

They are so wrong - it begins at Gloucester....
Posted on: 01 November 2015 by George F

The problem can be found far further south, such as the beautiful looking Blandford Forum. Beautiful to look at by day and a nest of drug dealing iniquity by night.

 

I have a friend who lives there and he assured me that the place is not nearly as idyllic as it looks in the morning sunshine!

 

ATB from George

Posted on: 01 November 2015 by Guy007

NW London, Bournemouth, Chichester, Cape Town, Chalfont St Giles, Toronto, Calgary...

 

It's been varied for me, but the majority of my other friends have stayed put, a few have tried moving but ended up coming back.  It was easy moving when single, harder now with a family. The one thing I miss most from England is the history and direct family.  That said my brother moved to Paris.

 

If I had the time again, I wouldn't change anything, other than trying to keep and rent out the England properties - prices are crazy !