Abstract
Urban scholars and planners look to evidence of recent gains in the number of nontraditional households as a potential source of increase to the population sizes and tax bases of declining central cities. While it is now well established that substantial gains in the numbers of small, nontraditional households have occurred since the 1950s, it has not been demonstrated that: (a) these households are more likely to relocate in the city than traditional family households (husband-wife with children under 18); or (b) their cityward relocation patterns will significantly alter trends toward smaller city household populations. This paper addresses these questions by examining changes in city-suburb migration stream rates by household type over periods 1955–60, 1965–70 and 1970–75 for large metropolitan areas, and assesses their implications for potential changes in the aggregate sizes of city household populations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abu-Lughod, Janet and Mary Mix Foley. 1960. Consumer Strategies. In Nelson N. Foote, Janet Abu-Lughod, Mary Mix Foley and Louis Winnick (eds.), Housing Choices and Housing Constraints, Part Two. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Butler, Edger W., F. Stuart Chapin, Jr., George C. Hemmens, Edward J. Kaiser, Michael A. Stegman, and Shirley F. Weiss. 1969. Moving Behavior and Residential Choice-A National Survey. National Cooperative Highway Research Program Report No. 81. Washington, D.C.: Highway Research Board, National Academy of Sciences.
Embry, Robert C., Jr. 1978. Back-to-the-City Movement May Signal the End of Urban Decline. City, Town and Country (January):37–38.
Fleetwood, Blake. 1979. The New Elite and the Urban Renaissance. The New York Times Magazine (January 14).
Chevan, Albert. 1971. Family Growth, Household Density and Moving. Demography 8:351–358.
Frey, William H. 1978a. Population Movement and City-Suburb Redistribution: An Analytic Framework. Demography 15:571–578.
— 1978b. Mover’s Life-Cycle Stage and Choice of Destination Neighborhood: Implications for Urban Social Structure. Pp. 99–148 in W. A. V. Clark and Eric G. Moore (eds.), Population Mobility and Residential Change. Studies in Geography No. 25. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University.
— 1980a. Black In-Migration, White Flight and the Changing Economic Base of the Central City. American Journal of Sociology 85:1396–1417.
Frey, William H. 1980b. White Return to the City, Black Movement to the Suburbs, and Projected Changes in Future City Populations. Paper presented at the 1980 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York City.
Glick, Paul C. 1975. Some Recent Changes in American Families. U. S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Special Studies: Series P-23. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office.
— 1977. Marrying, Divorcing and Living Together in the United States Today. Population Bulletin 32:5. Washington, D.C.: Population Reference Bureau, Inc.
Goodman, John L., Jr. 1974. Local Residential Mobility and Family Housing Adjustments. Pp. 79–105 in J. N. Morgan (ed.), Five Thousand American Families-Patterns of Economic Progress, Vol. II. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan.
— 1979. Reasons for Moves Out Of and Into Large Cities. Journal of the American Planning Associations 45:407–416.
Grier, George and Eunice S. Grier. 1977. Movers to the City. Washington, D.C.: Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies.
Kobrin, Frances E. 1973. Household Headship and Its Changes in the U.S., 1940–1960, 1970. Journal of the American Statistical Association 68:793–800.
— 1976a. The Fall of Household Size and the Rise of the Primary Individual in the United States. Demography 13:127–138.
— 1976b. The Primary Individual and the Family: Changes in Living Arrangements in the United States Since 1940. Journal of Marriage and the Family 38:233–239.
— 1981. Family Extension and the Elderly: Economic, Demographic, and Family Cycle Factors. The Journal of Gerontology 6:370–377.
Laska, Shirley Bradway and Daphne Spain (eds.). 1980. Back to the City: Issues in Neighborhood Renovation. New York: Pergamon Press.
Long, Larry H. 1972. The Influence of Number and Ages of Children on Residential Mobility. Demography 9:371–382.
— 1980. Back to the Countryside and Back to the City in the Same Decade. Pp. 61–76 in Shirley Bradway Laska and Daphne Spain (eds.), Back to the City: Issues in Neighborhood Renovation. New York: Pergamon Press.
Long, Larry H. and Paul C. Glick. 1976. Family Patterns in Suburban Areas: Recent Trends. Pp, 39–67 in Barry Schwartz (ed.), The Changing Face of the Suburbs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Michael, Robert T., Victor Fuchs, and Sharon R. Scott. 1980. Changes in the Propensity to Live Alone: 1950–1976. Demography 17(1):39–56.
Rossi, Peter H. 1955. Why Families Move. New York: The Free Press.
Speare, Alden Jr. 1970. Horne Ownership, Life Cycle Stage, and Residential Mobility. Demography 7:449–458.
Speare, Alden Jr., Sidney Goldstein, and William H. Frey. 1975. Residential Mobility, Migration and Metropolitan Change. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Company.
Sweet, James A. 1977. Demography and the Family. Annual Review of Sociology 3:363–405.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Frey, W.H., Kobrin, F.E. Changing families and changing mobility: Their impact on the central city. Demography 19, 261–277 (1982). https://doi.org/10.2307/2060970
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2060970