Studies indicate that Americans are moving less than ever before: People move for college, and will probably move again to their first job, but people move a lot less often afterwards. An important reason is that two salaries per family is the norm if you want to live comfortably, and looking for two jobs somewhere else that aren't a net loss is not all that common.

At the same time, moving for people without college degrees is even lower, because their lives require a strong social support network, and that doesn't move with you. This is part of why growth in the poorest parts of the country is not in any way catching up with big metro areas.

What is really weakening social structures is that we both have a country full of suburbia and unstable work environments. This leaves few opportunities to build friendships after college. Friendship is easy if you met the same people all the time organically: Super dense cities or even vacation resorts give plenty of opportunity to keep interacting with the same people without trying hard. Nowadays, the only place that gives us that opportunity is work, and once someone changes jobs, the interactions go away.

We see very similar situations in multiplayer videogames. A first person shooter with dedicated servers that people select builds a community. Joining a random queue makes sure you never meet the same people often enough to build connections.

In life, people get through this by just using group hobbies as excuses. I know many people that go to 10+ conventions a year, just to meet other people that also do this, and end up building friendships even when living far away. Similar things happen with computer conferences. The flipside is that all that travel weakens families: I know someone that this year is on track to spend 3 months away from home, mostly because this person enjoys it. The problem is that they have two daughters. You can imagine what the girls aren't taking it well.

I suspect that humanity will keep working on new techniques to avoid the loneliness and inefficiency that comes from very weak social links: Like in many other areas, it's a case where changes are coming faster than humans adapt, but we can't just keep working this way.

This. In the last 10 years I have lived in 7 different places in 5 different cities. Either because I had to move or because my wife got a new job. Most of my friends growing up live in a town I haven't lived within 300 miles of in 13 years.

4/5 times if I make a new friend one of us (sometimes me, sometimes them) moves far away within three years.

I bought a house a few years ago so now I have forced stability (moving is too expensive so to make me move it would have to be an incredible opportunity).

That's part of it, but part of it is also that our communities are physically structured very differently. My parents have lived in the same neighborhood fifteen years and don't really know any of their neighbors. Their neighborhood is a modern cul-de-sac of McMansions designed to make it easy to ignore the people around you. In contrast, my wife and I moved into a pre-car era neighborhood just six months ago. We already know a ton of neighbors. It's hard not to meet them when every house has a porch and sits on a lot 1/5 the minimum lot size in the county.

You don't have to move for new jobs, you have to move for the kinds of jobs people on HN want.

I don't know that this is true. I have been in the same smallish town (Boulder) for almost two decades and have had a number of different jobs (startups, contracting, smallcos).

I run a neighborhood mailing list and was thrilled when my lawnmower broke and I asked to borrow one on the list. I had five or so folks happy to lend me theirs.

However, it was hard for me to ask. Was it pride, fear of being turned down or them thinking "why doesn't he just buy one"? Not sure.

I'm sure that's backwards. Earlier generations were more likely to move around than are Millenials. See Census Bureau "Americans Moving at Historically Low Rates" November 2016.

How is that the problem? I've had my current neighbors for a few months and we've borrowed several things from each other. Lived in a house in a different place for a year and a half. Great friends with the folks next door and borrowed things from each other regularly. You just have to go talk to people when they move in, invite them over for a barbecue and boom - now you're friends. Not that hard to redo every time someone changes a job.

There are so many things I'd love to own. Golf clubs, snowboard, records, guitar, even just nice wine glasses. But I move far and often and have not found a way to move or store my own things.

All the jobs I've moved for paid for me to move. I priced moving my big shit before and it was not really any more expensive than other stuff like a motorcycle. It's just pure weight.