Next Stop, Reloville

Book excerpt: An eye-opening investigation of the growing phenomenon of "Relos," the professionals for whom relocation is a way of life Drive through the newest subdivisions of Atlanta, Dallas, or Denver, and you'll notice an unusual similarity in the layout of the houses, the models of the cars, the pastimes of the stay-at-home moms. But this is not your grandparents' suburbia, "the little houses made of ticky-tacky"—these houses go for half a million dollars and up, and no one stays longer than three or four years. You have entered the land of Relos, the mid-level executives for a growing number of American companies, whose livelihoods depend on their willingness to uproot their families in pursuit of professional success. Together they constitute a new social class, well-off but insecure, well traveled but insular. Peter T. Kilborn, a longtime reporter for The New York Times, takes us inside the lives of American Relos, showing how their distinctive pressures and values affect not only their own families and communities but also the country as a whole. As Relo culture becomes the norm for these workers, more and more Americans—no matter their jobs or the economy's booms and busts—will call Relovilles "home."