Hypothesis (Question for ChatGPT)

Fact check my thought. I’ve read the book The Big Sort, talking about how people move around the country to areas that confirm their political views as well as sort each other by college degrees, such as the coasts. With this type of moving and I know Americans have been moving their families and away from where they grew up, quite frequently in the 20th century. My thought is one of the side effects of this type of moving around the country causes people to lose the community of extended family. The type of tribe and unit that would help parenting as it wouldn’t just the be the nuclear family, but it’d be uncles, nieces, and countless cousins and extended family, deep roots in a community, even strong connects to neighbors that families have known each other for generations.

Short answer: your intuition is broadly right—but with some important nuances.

• People really have sorted somewhat by ideology and education. Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort documented partisan clustering; later analyses find the pattern is real in many places, though scholars debate how much of today’s polarization it explains. [https://www.hoover.org/research/myth-big-sort] (Hoover Institution)
• Twentieth-century America was highly mobile—but mobility has fallen to historic lows recently. The share of Americans who move each year has declined for decades and hit record lows in the 2010s–2020s (e.g., just 2.1% moved interstate in 2024; within-state moves 8.9%). That means yesterday’s moves may have “thinned” extended family networks, while today fewer people are moving. [https://www.census.gov/topics/population/migration/guidance/acs-1yr.html] [https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/historic.html] [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/americans-local-migration-reached-a-historic-low-in-2022-but-long-distance-moves-picked-up/] (Census.gov)
• Education is a key splitter of family proximity. The best U.S. evidence shows most adults still live fairly close to their mothers (median <25 miles), but college graduates live farther away. That dovetails with your “coasts/degree” idea: the very groups doing long-distance moves are likelier to be separated from kin. [https://ftp.iza.org/dp7431.pdf] (ftp.iza.org)
• Kin nearby matters for hands-on help. When grandparents and adult children live close, time transfers (childcare, errands, emotional support) rise sharply. Grandparents have been a major childcare backstop in U.S. data, though coresident grandparent caregiving ticked down in recent years, partly due to post-pandemic shifts. [https://ftp.iza.org/dp7431.pdf] [https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2013/demo/p70-135.pdf] [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/03/grandparents-living-with-grandchildren.html] [https://apnews.com/article/e7b5aaa8b3e7fae8ee406da29389f4af] (ftp.iza.org)
• Community ties beyond family have also weakened. Putnam’s famous “Bowling Alone” thesis documents multi-decade declines in club membership, neighborly engagement, etc. Recent Pew snapshots: only about a quarter of Americans say they know all/most neighbors. That compounds the loss of “thick” local networks. [https://historyofsocialwork.org/1995_Putnam/1995%2C%20Putnam%2C%20bowling%20alone.pdf] [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/08/how-connected-do-americans-feel-to-their-neighbors/] (historyofsocialwork.org)

Bottom line

• Yes: Ideological/educational sorting and long-distance moves (especially among college-educated movers) doseparate many families from extended kin, weakening informal childcare and day-to-day support. That matches your hypothesis. (ftp.iza.org)
• But: Most Americans still live relatively near at least one parent, overall U.S. mobility has dropped, and kin support remains substantial where proximity exists. So the “loss of the tribe” varies by class, education, and who moved how far. (ftp.iza.org)

If you want one-sentence take

Your thought is directionally correct for the highly mobile, college-educated slice of America; for everyone else, kin proximity and grandparent help are still common—though neighborly and civic ties have thinned more generally.

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Sources (plain links for your notes)

• The Big Sort debate: https://www.hoover.org/research/myth-big-sort
• U.S. mobility rates (2024 ACS): https://www.census.gov/topics/population/migration/guidance/acs-1yr.html
• Historic mobility trends (1948–2023): https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/historic.html
• Within-county vs long-distance moves (Brookings): https://www.brookings.edu/articles/americans-local-migration-reached-a-historic-low-in-2022-but-long-distance-moves-picked-up/
• Intergenerational proximity & education gradient (Compton & Pollak): https://ftp.iza.org/dp7431.pdf
• Grandparents as childcare (Census “Who’s Minding the Kids?”): https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2013/demo/p70-135.pdf
• Grandparents living with/caring for grandchildren (Census, 2024): https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/03/grandparents-living-with-grandchildren.html
• AP summary on recent declines in grandparent caregivers: https://apnews.com/article/e7b5aaa8b3e7fae8ee406da29389f4af
• Declining social capital (Putnam): https://historyofsocialwork.org/1995_Putnam/1995%2C%20Putnam%2C%20bowling%20alone.pdf
• Knowing neighbors (Pew, 2025): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/08/how-connected-do-americans-feel-to-their-neighbors/

Interstate moving (past 12 months, nationwide)

• Moved to a different state: 2.1% of people (2024 ACS 1-year).
  Source: https://www.census.gov/topics/population/migration/guidance/acs-1yr.html
• Moved within the same state: 8.9% (2024 ACS 1-year).
  Source: https://www.census.gov/topics/population/migration/guidance/acs-1yr.html

How close adults live to parents

• Median distance to mother: about 18 miles (NYT Upshot analysis of the Health and Retirement Study; widely cited in the literature).
  Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html
• Share with a parent (or adult child) within 30 miles: about 75% of adults who have a living parent or adult child.
  Source (peer-reviewed): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7537569/
• Life-course view: a large fraction of life from ages 18–54 is spent within 5–30 miles of one’s mother; patterns vary by race and mortality.
  Source (methods + figures): 
• Young adults’ proximity to where they grew up: ~60% live within 10 miles and ~80% within 100 miles by age 26 (Census + Harvard study).
  Source (Census summary): https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/theres-no-place-like-home.html

How close people live to extended family

• At least some extended family within an hour’s drive: 55% of U.S. adults.
  Source (Pew Research Center): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/18/more-than-half-of-americans-live-within-an-hour-of-extended-family/
• Cousins specifically (one estimate): about 6% of adult cousins live in the same census tract; average distance ~237 miles.
  Source (reported summary citing sociologist Jonathan Daw): https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/12/cousin-relationships-fertility-rate/676892/

Do families stay in the same place for 100 years?

• There isn’t an official U.S. statistic on “the percentage of families who have lived in the same place for 100 years.” Public data track individuals (not whole family lineages) by mobility and birthplace.
• Useful proxies:
  • Percent living in their birth state (all ages): about 58–59% nationally in recent ACS data (varies by state and year).
    Overview: https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/ranking-tables/ (see R0601 “Percent of the Native Population Born in Their State of Residence”)
    Context explainer (using 2010–2014 ACS): https://carolinademography.cpc.unc.edu/2016/06/02/not-from-around-here-share-of-population-born-in-state-of-residence/
  • “Stayers” near childhood location: as noted above, ~60% within 10 miles and ~80% within 100 milesby age 26.
    Source: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/theres-no-place-like-home.html
  • Share remaining in the same commuting zone as adults: mappable in the Opportunity Atlas (varies widely by place and cohort).
    Tool: https://www.opportunityatlas.org/ (see “% Staying in Same Commuting Zone as Adults”)

U.S. Interstate Moving Rate (ACS 1-year), 2006–2024

Definition: Share of the U.S. population that lived in a different state one year ago (American Community Survey, 1-year). The Census does not publish a 2020 value for this series due to data quality issues.

Sources:

• ACS 1-year “At a Glance” (Different State of Residence than 1 Year Ago): https://www.census.gov/topics/population/migration/guidance/acs-1yr.html
• Direct figure with datapoints (PDF): https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/visualizations/geographic-mobility/acs-1yr/state-in-the-past-yr.pdf

Note: For a 100-year view, combine this ACS series (2006–present) with the CPS historical series (1948–2005), which uses different survey wording. If you want, I can produce a second table that stitches ACS + CPS with a clear break in 2004/2005.