A Prospective on Zelinsky's Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition

Abstract

Wilbur Zelinsky's 1971 paper in Geographical Review entitled the “Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition” was both forward‐looking and offered innovative ideas regarding human geographic mobility. One of the most interesting aspects of the paper was a set of predictions for mobility in a “future superadvanced society”. Many of these predictions have now come to pass, including a general decline in international and internal migration and residential change, the increasing regulation of migration ‐ especially internally, and the possibility that the widespread adoption of information and communication technologies has impacted human geographic mobility. Hence, this essay looks at the mobility transition not as an obsolete frame of reference but as a prescient, pliable, and adaptable framework which not only informs the study of human geographic mobility today but also, perhaps, even into the future.

Key words:

• migration
• population geography
• modernization
• regulation
• communications

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas J. Cooke

Thomas J. Cooke, Department of Geography, University of Connecticut, Austin Building, 215 Glenbrook Rd #422, Storrs, CT 06269; [[email protected]].

Richard Wright

Richard Wright, Department of Geography, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755‐3571 USA; [[email protected]].

Mark Ellis

Mark Ellis, Department of Geography and Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, Box 353550, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 USA; [[email protected]].