Berkeley Talks

In Berkeley Talks episode 225, The Atlantic journalists Yoni Appelbaum and Jerusalem Demsas discuss the decline of housing mobility in the United States and its impact on economic opportunity in the country. Appelbaum, author of the 2025 book Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity, began by tracing the history of housing mobility in the U.S. and its rapid decline in recent decades. He noted that in the 19th century, one out of three Americans moved to a new residence every year, and as late as 1970, one in five did. Today, only one in 13 people in the U.S. pack up their things and find a new place to live on an annual basis. “These constant moves in America, made possible by the constant construction of new housing, created a new kind of social order,” said Appelbaum, and most people “ended up better off for it.” The sharp decline in residential relocation, he said, caused largely by rising housing costs and restrictive zoning, is a major driver of