CONTINUITIES IN SIZE OF PLACE PREFERENCES IN THE UNITED-STATES, 1972-1992

The directions of net migration and population redistribution in the U .S. have switched from nonmetropolitan deconcentration during the 1970 s, to metropolitan concentration during the 1980s, and back to deconce ntration once again in the early 1990s. The complex causes of these di stribution shifts are thought to involve both structural reconfigurati ons of economic activities that affect the location of opportunities a nd residential preferences that are tied more closely to amenities and quality of life considerations. This paper uses comparable data from three representative sample surveys of the U.S. population to update a nd extend earlier research on the preferential basis of redistribution trends. Our analysis does not support the view that shifts in the dir ection of residential preferences during 1972-1992 tend to coincide wi th shifts in metropolitan-nonmetropolitan net migration and population redistribution. Rather, a consistent finding across all three surveys is that most people prefer their current residence type, and those wh o do not are almost twice as likely to prefer lower rather than higher density settings. These findings support the importance of preference s to explanations of recent population trends, but these preferences a re not in isolation from the economic contexts in which they occur.