Some notes towards a sociology of residential mobility

Abstract

A Sociology of Residential Mobility. Migration, with origins dating to the nomadic wanderings of the first men, has always been characteristic of human societies. In prehistoric and pre agricultural times when man was a hunter, fisherman, and food gatherer, and lived in small clans or groups scattered over a considerable area, there was much freedom of movement; sometimes being associated with military conquest resulting from intertribal wars, or in other cases being merely movement into nearby areas which were not yet settled, or at best sparsely populated. With the development of agriculture, groups became tied to a given area, making possible the improvement of food production which, in turn, enabled the support of a much denser settlement. A number of these agricultural settlements developed, in river valleys such as the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, and eventually became centres of great civilizations.