Geographic Mobility and Residential Instability in Impoverished Rural Illinois Places

Impoverished rural places are often depicted as immobile communities populated by less skilled, less educated nonmovers who have been left behind by selective out-migrants. Yet certain poor rural localities exhibit high rates of in-migration and residential mobility, an underresearched phenomenon not easily explained by conventional migration theory. The authors explore factors associated with high rates of geographic mobility in impoverished rural localities in Illinois. With the aid of place data from the 2000 Census, the authors test a hypothesized model of geographic mobility within rural impoverished Illinois places. In addition to factors commonly found in the residential mobility literature, such as age distribution, employment security, and life stage, the model also tests the effects of various indicators of housing costs and housing supply on geographic mobility rates in poor and nonpoor places. The results indicate that, after controlling for age structure and household type, accessible housing in the form of rental housing is strongly associated with high mobility rates, though the overall fit of the models is better for nonpoor places. These findings raise questions regarding whether geographic mobility in impoverished places behaves according to long-standing theory, and have implications for policies for tackling rural development, housing, and poverty issues.