The Geography of America’s Mobile and ‘Stuck,’ Mapped

There is little doubt that America’s class structure is changing. The decline of the working class has given rise to an incredible concentration of both wealth and disadvantage. But our class structure is not just cleaving along economic lines, but across geographic lines as well. For more and more Americans, our zip codes are our destiny, with our ability to achieve economic mobility, pursue our careers, and afford homes dependent on where we live.

More than a decade ago, in my book Who’s Your City?, I argued that the knowledge economy is bringing about an epochal shift in our class structure. The old class distinction between the corporate class and workers was giving way to a new geographically based class division. I identified three new classes: “the mobile” who have the means, education, and capability to move to spaces of opportunity; “the stuck” who lack the resources to relocate; and “the rooted” who have the resources to move, but prefer to stay where they are.