Attribute preferences and the non-metropolitan migration decision

Abstract

Interviews with recent migrants to several small nonmetropolitan places elicited attributes of ideal, origin and chosen settlements.Their responses permitted construction of simple measures or valuations of economic, social, individual and environmental aspects of ideal, origin and destination. From these it was possible to evaluate the critical components of the migration decision, to estimate tradeoffs between economic and noneconomic benefits, and to distinguish between probable movers and non-movers.Methods used included content analysis of lengthy recorded interviews, variance-covariance analysis of responses and logit analysis to distinguish movers and non-movers. The majority of respondents were characterized as very negative about life in the cities, where most had moved from, and as positive about both the social and environmental characteristics of their new communities. Economic concerns were of lesser significance to the migrants than expected.

Migration, Places, and Nonmetropolitan Development

“…Ullman (1954) was among the first to cite amenities as a major Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 06:19 17 March 2015 factor in the regional growth process. Since then, a number of studies have shown amenities to be an important factor in the migration process (Cushing, 1987;Frederick, 1985;Graves, 1979Graves, , 1983Morrill, Downing and Leon, 1986;Rudzitis, 1979Rudzitis, , 1989Rudzitis and Johansen, 1988;Swanson, 1986). Today it is recognized that people move and places increase or decrease in population because of a complex combination of factors.…”

“…There are still millions of people in metropolitan areas who report on national surveys they would prefer to live in nonmetropolitan areas (Beale, 1988). What will happen in the future is difficult to project because the migration patterns and population distribution in the 1970s differed substantially from the pattern of earlier decades (Morrill, 1988;Odland, 1988). Morrill (1988) finds a typology of migration regions and states that reflects a transition from core to periphery in migration behavior.…”

“…Pudup (1 988) argues that the historical and social origins of reconstituted regional geography lie in the rejection of positivistic spatial science. Must this be the case, especially at a time when there are calls to bring uniqueness of place back into locational analysis (Abler, 1987;Morrill, 1987)? Unfortunately, proponents of seemingly diametrically opposed approaches seldom interact, and the findings of one group are often ignored by the other.…”

Expectations for the Future Life of Floating People in Mega-Cities: A Study of In-Migrants in Beijing, China

“…Dissatisfaction with one's place or community is a driving force in his/her decision to move (Heaton et al, 1981;Speare et al, 1982;Ge & Hokao, 2006). The potential migrants in some sense estimate the "expected utility" of the move (Morrill, et al, 1986), and people view the migration decision as one of utility maximization, i.e., they migrate in order to become better off in some subjective sense (Ziegler & Britton, 1981). In addition, the quality of life has a substantial impact on in-migration volumes to metropolis (Porell, 1982).…”

The Metropolitan-Nonmetropolitan Turnaround in the Pacific States (California, Oregon, and Washington): Labor Migration Flows and Economic Deconcentration

“…Between 1970 and 1978, nonmetropolitan cpunties gained an additional 619,000 manufacturing jobs an~3,452,000 service jobs (Beale, 1980 Twenty-two percent of the region's popul~tion increase between 1970 and 1975 was a result of an increase of in-migration. Morrill, Downing, and Leon (1986) and Stevens (1980) hypothesize continued infusion of in-migration to:the (Hibbard, 1989;Morrill, Downing, & Leon, 1986;Shapira & Leigh-Preston, 1984). (Hibbard, 1989;Markusen, Hall, & Glasmeier, 1986;Saxenian, 1985).…”