It wouldn't have been written in 1992 because interstate net migration rates were near their historical highs. See, e.g., Figure 1, page 41 in https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2011/201130/201130p...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)
Factory towns are nothing new, and neither are factory towns disappearing overnight. What's relatively recent in modern American history is the reticence of Americans to move, thus the title of the article. But this reticence is probably a regression to the mean, much like everything else about the post-post-WWII economy.