Customer Reviews

Next Stop, Reloville: Life Inside America's New Rootless Professional Class

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When I saw this book, I knew immediately I had to pick this up. Let me tell you upfront that I am not a "Relo" myself, I've lived in Cincinnati now for 22+ years (although I did move to the US from Belgium), but I have certainly met a bunch of people that may be or really are a "Relo".

"Next Stop, Reloville: Life Inside America's New Rootless Professional Class" (255 pages) brings fascinating insights on the economic and social consequences of those professionals that move around a lot in building their careers. Observes the author (a long-time but now former NY Time reporter): "By buying new houses similar to those they leave, Relos concoct illusions of stability that allay the traumas of moving." Relo has become a huge business, in partcular for the real estate industry (turning over houses among Relos), the headhunters, the companies that move the Relos, the consultants/relocation management firms advising on how to adjust to new environments (in particular when the Relo moves internationally), etc. But as the author makes clear in painstakingly detail in the book, the spouse and kids of the Relos are the ones that suffer the most. "A dearth of intimate friendships with other women might be the toughest consequence of frequent moves. Every Relo wife I spoke to brought it up. Through schools, clubs, playing fields and kids, the wives makes some friends. But they don't make best friends." The author spices the book with countless interviews with real-life Relos, some of which thrive, some of which don't, but it never fails to fascinate to hear their personal stories.

This book is not particularly kind to the prime examples of Relo communities such as Alpharetta, GA and Flower Mound, TX, both of which get a lot of scrutiny in this book. That said, as with all these studies, I am sure that a lot of Relo families are doing quite well, but at the same time, this book exposes some serious issues about the Relo culture. In all, this book is highly recommended!

Peter Kilborn's years as a reporter and correspondent for the New York Times clearly served him well... he has the ability to take a large, abstract topic and find the interesting human stories that bring it to life.

I was a long-time resident of what Kilborn calls a "Reloville", and I would say that his nuanced descriptions of my former home are right on the money. It's clear that an impressive amount of research went into the book, and an impressive amount of insight as well.

Kilborn's thesis is that the needs and attitudes of the "Relo class" have shaped everything from the designs of our houses and suburbs to the politics of local government. That thesis is well argued in the book, but let me put it aside for the moment. To me, the stories of the families Kilborn followed make a fascinating snapshot of life in America today, and not just for the Relo class. Today the prototypical striver for the American Dream is not a farmer looking for land to homestead, but an inventory control manager, a sales manager, a shipping company executive, or anyone trying to climb the ladder of responsibility, recognition, and money. The farmer faced drought, storms, locusts, and other forces he could not predict nor control. Today the unforeseen shocks come from corporate mergers or economic storms, but the dislocating effects are similar. Kilborn's stories of people and families responding to today's forces make for thought-provoking reading. It's hard to imagine the reader who doesn't feel a connection to at least one of the stories.

Back to the core thesis. Kilborn describes, for example, the ill-fated attempt to build a performance arts center in one Reloville. How much of the blame should go to Relo voters who think that they won't be around to see the results, and how much to the myriad other social and political issues involved? It's not an open-and-shut case, but Kilborn's book provided a perspective that I had not considered before. All in all, I would recommend this book both for its human-interest stories and for its analysis of the Relo phenomenon.

I was excited to get this book after reading a favorable review in 'The Week' magazine. As the spouse of a Relo, I was eager to read about others' experiences and whether I can learn something to help my and my own families relocations. Firstly, this book is very well written and very well researched. My cheif complaint is that the actual content of the book, in my opinion, was off focus. Let me explain. A chapter will introduce a family and describe a plethora of facts about what they look like, what the houses look like, the husbands occupation, where they lived, the history of the husbands career and how much money he made, what he expects to make if he relocates etc etc etc. On this topic, for me, the book went into exhaustive detail and on a positive note, it reads extremely well researched. But chapter after chapter, these descriptions continue and I was left wishing there was more on how the family 'felt' and 'dealt' with these drastic transformations. The ninth of twelves chapters does begin to address these things, but again it is from a very statistical perspective, e.g. "[children] who moved 3 or more times were 2.3 times more likely to have behavioral problems...1.7 times more likely to repeat a grade". Many chapters devote several continguous paragraphs describing the landscape of a Relo's childhood town. This makes it personable and readable, but I was really looking for what the book title promised - 'life INSIDE America's new rootless class'. Another telling chapter for me was the sixth which dealt with the companies assisting in relocation. The book gives the impression they work miracles which is far from the truth in my experience. After reading this chapter, I felt as though the author had read the companies glossy brochures but failed to really ask the families he chronicles in his book about the stresses of going through this rushed life-changing procedure. The truth is you get about a week to visit a completely new State; and in that short time pick a house to live in. Instead, this book was more a compilation of facts about relocating families income, commute, past employers, etc etc. For me, as a Relo myself, this book missed a golden opportunity to be unique a specific to Relo's by failing to address how we deal and live with continuous relocations.

Having undergone relocation as the child of a corporate executive and later as a struggling young corporate ladder climber, Peter Kilborn's "Next Stop Reloville" title caught my attention. Unlike relocation today, as Kilborn so brilliantly portrays it, relos im my father's and my time were small in numbers and integrated themselves more-or-less effortlessly into existing older communities in those towns where corporations sent them. Now the relo scene is markedly different with huge reloville suburbs dotting the landscape near corporate headquarter and branch office locations primarily in Georgia, Colorado and Texas.
Rather than paint a picture of the current state of corporate relocation entirely with statistics, Kilborn infuses his text with relo family personal sagas, gives us a glimpse of the people and services that thrive off of the relocation business, and offers observations on the relo/reloville phenomenon from sociologists and psychologists.
The picture they all paint isn't always a pretty one and while not taking sides you get the feeling that Kilborn is extremely sympathetic to the relo's plight. Relovilles are unhappy worlds of sameness and the relos are people basically left to fend for themselves without close friends and the support of extended families in a world so aptly described as "relo beige".
Kilborn makes it apparent that not all Relos are satisfied with their way of life and the constant stress of staying sane in a vanilla world. It's a world that every two to four years strains families as the call comes to pick up and move yet again for the sake of job advancement.
I found the book a fascinating view of a subculture that is not full of stick figures or automatons a la the movie "The Truman Story", but real people struggling to get ahead and stay ahead all the while creating a huge change in the look of the American landscape and the American way of life.
For those who are interested in the lives of America's corporate worker bees and those who think the days of corporate conformity have long since past, "Next Stop Reloville" is a must read.

This book fascinated and depressed me, a reaction that I think Kilborn intended. I kept thinking, is the phenomenon that Kilburn describes so well necessary? Does it have to be so terrible in its effects? The people he writes about are passive, unaware of the determinism inherent in what they think are their choices. The author's subversive intentions are well served: to write a book like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which depicted so well the unsanitary conditions of the slaughter houses in Chicago that it contributed to the passage of The Pure Food and Drug Act. Reading Kilborn's book,I wondered what Thomas Jefferson would think about what has happened to our City on the Hill. How does this phenomenon of uprooting families from their homes and communities so that the husband(wives are not the agents,yet)in order to be promoted, make more money, how does it contribute to the American Dream of individual freedom? Kilborn shows vividly that we may believe we choose, but that in fact our culture has already determined their choices. One of the chief virtues of the book is how well it captures the twinned feelings of loss that come with sucess. As one bewildered wife says, "I had the feeling that with so much money, attention . . . that the other stuff, community,neighbors wouldn't matter."

Your initial post: Aug 11, 2009 10:11 AM PDT
Seymour Auerbach, Architect says:
Peter Kilborne's book "Reloville", at first had me perplexed: I could not connect the "Professional Class" with their being "rootless" as the subtitle on the cover suggests. But, as a professional, it grabbed me and I bought and read it - thereby enjoying a wonderful read.

It became immediately clear that Peter's book has little, if nothing, to do with the professional class - Doctors, Lawyers, Architects, professionals all, are not rootless; their drive is to stay in one location and build a reputation. What Peter writes about is a segment of society whose asendancy is inherently dependant on being rootless with a purpose - stepping up the ladder of success as they move from one manageriel post to the next higher one - and the next and the next. It is a class of our workingpopulation of which I had no previous knowledge. That lack of knowledge enhanced my enjoyment of the book. It was all new stuff for me. It was captivating.

To be short and sweet about it; Peter introduced me to the "vagabonds" (my word) of the Relovilles - their oases as they move up their ladders of success - with some of the smoothest writing it's been my pleasure to read in a good while. He turns a phrase gently, employs figures of speach which brought smiles to my face. What is astonishing about this book is that its subject matter could well have been dealt with as a dry didactic work. What Peter accomplishes while deliverring loads of relevent statistics, is that he somehow entwines them into a delightful portrayal of the lives of these ever-moving, restless "climbers-to-success" what with their problems and pleasures, the mechanisms of their transportitions. He brings their patterns of life to the reader in a most delightful manner.

This is a book which can be read as a novel, a mystery or an academic tutorial - take your choice as you read the first chapter. But whatever twist you, as the reader, give it, it is a most delightfully informative read.

Want to succeed in business by really trying very hard? You can go to business school and then go to Wall Street or you can go to business school or otherwise aqcuire valuable skills and then find a job in any of a number of industries that really do seek managerial talent. However, if this is the route you take, be certain to pack your bags and keep them packed, because the Next Stop:Reloville.
Reloville is the neologism invented by Peter Kilborn who has been a business reporter for the NYTimes for many many years. Those of us with elephant memories know he created a stock market crash all by himself a number of years ago when he quite accurately reported, based on an interview, that Secretary James Baker had said the United States government would not support the dollar in the international currency markets. Anyone could have asked that man that question and gotten the same answer. Kilborn did.
Now he has turned his abilities to excavating a new area in sociology--the world of the ceaselesly relocating, talented strata of management who move
themselves and their families all over the country and the world for the greater glory of their companies e.g. UPS.
This group, Kilborne tells us, utilizing extraordinary facts and details(where did he get all that stuff?) has shaped itself and at least a segment of the remainder of the population with it into a stratified group which has developed a consensus as to which size and design of house can be relied upon to resell, which towns to live in, which sports to engage in so as to make new friends fast, which cars to drive etc.
These folks, we learn, are smart, hard working and driven to succeed but in so doing, they have landed themselves in Reloville, not an altogether bad place to be.

This book is a must read for anyone considering a life of frequent relocation to the relo cities cited in this book. It has made me rethink moving to Alpharetta GA.

"Relos" are managers or professionals who have relocated from one city to another in the last year or two and will likely move again soon to take advantage of an employment opportunity, perhaps with their current employer, though maybe with another. These folks tend to be relatively affluent but otherwise generally seem normal by most American standards. Yet to me they appear somewhat exotic, since I have lived in the same house in a stable urban neighborhood for more than thirty years and currently do not know any of them personally. I think whether you are in my position, are a Relo yourself, or are somewhere in between, Peter Kilborn's book will hold your attention.

Next Stop, Reloville is in a sense a type of "reality journalism," starring people who are quite mainstream in most ways, not outrageous extroverts or publicity seekers. The book consists mostly of stories of actual families whom Kilborn has interviewed and followed; several are even pictured. It is written with some verve, in a style you might expect to see in Newsweek or Business Week, publications where Kilborn (himself once a Relo) has previously been employed. Various elements in it seem derivative of either Vance Packard's Nation of Strangers, William Whyte's The Organization Man, or Joel Garreau's Edge City, all of which Kilborn acknowledges.

Relos frequently live in "Relovilles." A Reloville is a suburban city with a high percentage of residents born in a different state or country, a fast growing population, and a high percentage of adults classified as managerial or professional employees (an appendix identifies 25 such cities). Typically Relovilles are near a major airport and land is relatively cheap compared to their metropolitan hub areas. Many are in the south or west. Examples include Alpharetta, Georgia; Plano, Flower Mound, and Frisco, Texas; and Castle Rock and Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

The author estimates that there are about ten million Relos, constituting about three percent of the U.S. population. One small complaint I have is that the book's subtitle implies that Relo mobility is new phenomenon, or at least a growing one. However, Kilborn clearly recognizes that there has long been a substantial class of Relos, extending back at least to his parents' generation. In a recent Newsweek article Joel Kotkin has pointed out that people are actually moving less now than they did in the 1970s and as recently as 2006, explained in large part by tougher times with shrinking opportunities to find jobs or sell houses. Kotkin also observes that many executives are now unwilling to move even for a good promotion, that technology enables many to work from home and that family considerations have apparently elevated in importance. Kilborn reports that a UPS official, for example, stated that the company now has more and more employees who are reluctant to relocate.

Relo families typically have gained income with relocations, and often asset wealth as well when housing prices appreciated during boom times (that has changed). But relocations are frequently costly in terms of other aspects of family life. The women in Relo family households have often put their own careers on hold in order to enable their husbands' upward mobility. Children may resist moving from school to school and leaving their friends. Kilborn cites research that shows that moving negatively affects children's emotional and behavioral well-being. The family may have moved a long distance from aging grandparents and other extended family members. The parents typically do not develop the kinds of local ties associated with longer residency. Marriages may dissolve, not helped by the relocation anxieties, and Kilborn reports on a few of these.

Although Relo moms often join moms' groups of one kind or another, Kilborn says every Relo wife he spoke with brought up how they missed forming intimate friendships with other females. "The people you are close to move away. You can't get too close. It breaks your heart when you have to move away," said one. A "best friend" is different than a "pretty good friend," said another -- Relos may not be in place long enough to become completely trusting of new friends.

The families themselves are the leads in the narrative, but real estate and locales have a supporting role. One wife confesses that she has had to make many compromises, that she never wanted to live in the suburbs, but that she had gone along because the houses became exciting distractions, creating a sense that a new house might rekindle a marriage. Developers and real estate professionals, several of whom Kilborn speaks with, thrive on Relos (or at least they once did). Kilborn notes how houses in certain subdivisions have been designed with Relos directly in mind, that they must have features that will make them easier to sell when the next transfer occurs. Thus these subdivisions typically consist of just a few predictable architectural models; anything out of the ordinary (sometimes a very expensive ordinary) is shunned.

While on balance Kilborn tilts toward emphasis on some of the less desirable aspects of the relocation life style, he is never unduly judgmental about the families he covers and he pretty much lets them tell their own stories. What they have to say is sometimes poignant, and collectively it represents a cumulative learning experience that could be of considerable value to younger folks facing big life choices that may either anchor them or set them frequently on the road.

During the economic free fall of 2008 and 2009, relos -- people who relocate early and often to advance their professional careers -- fared better than most, Peter Kilborn tells us at the outset of his book. "Relos," he writes, "were too essential to employers bent on holding their hard-won turf, lest China and India swoop in and take it."
Clearly, this subset of Americans, who he says exert a disproportionately large influence over the country's economic, social and physical character, is a group worth getting to know. And it's hard to imagine a person better equipped to acquaint us about them than Kilborn, who honed his journalistic skills during a 30-year career at The New York Times. Those skills are evident in his exhaustive and empathetic reporting and crisp writing about the trials and triumphs of individual relo families as they take up residence in one community after another, often in places largely inhabited by other rootless people.
"Wherever they go, they don't belong," Kilborn writes movingly of these families. "Their kids don't know where they are from. Relos don't know where their funerals will be or who might come."
But as poignant as the lives of relos are, he says their ranks are likely to swell when business activity strengthens again. For the hard truth is that relocation often paves the path into the corner executive suite. According to Kilborn, about a third of recently appointed CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies worked in three or more locations, at their current companies or others, before moving to headquarters.
This groundbreaking book sheds welcome light about the high price relos pay -- and the rest of us pay -- for this rugged route to the top.