The Nomadic American

Monday, Sep. 11, 1972

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So far away doesn't anybody stay in one place any more...

Travelin' around sure gets me down and lonely,

Nothin' else to do but close my mind,

I sure hope the road don't come to own me...

These lyrics, from a 1971 hit recording by Songstress Carole King, have struck a responsive chord in millions of Americans. That comes as no surprise to Social Critic Vance Packard. The song became popular, Packard believes, because it poignantly reflects the pain and yearning of a nation on the move. America has become a land of nomads, he says, a nation of men and women who are rootless, isolated, indifferent to community problems, shallow in personal relationships and afflicted with "unconnectedness and a lonely coldness."

Packard's indictment is detailed in A Nation of Strangers (David McKay; $7.95), the seventh of Packard's commentaries on the American way of life. If the wide appeal of his earlier volumes*—and of Carole King's song—is any indication, Strangers, published this week, may well be another bestseller.

Mobility is not new, and Packard did not discover it. The increasing industrialization of the U.S. has made moving easy, sometimes desirable and often necessary; thus the U.S. has long been a highly fluid society. That fact has been reported before, but only in bits and pieces. Packard is the first to fit the pieces together and assess their meaning.

The shifting population documented by Packard includes not only the obvious categories, such as military men and migrant workers, but also athletes, actors, long-distance bus and truck drivers, salesmen, construction workers and airline stewardesses. Blacks flee the inner cities, and whites flee blacks. People displaced by urban renewal or superhighways are forced to pull up stakes. So, very often, are executives transferred to distant cities; to many of its employees, IBM means "I've Been Moved." The aged migrate voluntarily, becoming "snowbirds" in the sunshine of Florida or California. The young leave home to escape their parents.

Mostly, those who move long distances are "the kind who ordinarily play the major role in holding the community together." Partly because those who stay behind "must settle for second or third best in leadership," social mobility affects non-movers too. Even people who live in one house all their lives may become "psychological nomads: the turnover of people around them is so great that they find themselves with few close ties to friends, kinfolk or community."

Packard musters some extraordinary statistics:

> The average American moves about 14 times in his lifetime, compared with five times for the Japanese.

> About 40 million Americans (one-fifth of the population) change their addresses at least once a year.

> In many cities, more than 35% of the population move every year. In Great Falls, Mont., there is a school that annually loses 70% of its pupils and 30% of its teachers.

> The wives of many managers have had to move their households 20 times in the course of their marriages.

> Some 6,000,000 Americans now live in mobile homes. Even though these homes are not often moved, their occupants feel "a minimum commitment to both home and community."