Next Stop Reloville by Peter T. Kilborn

After reading several positive reviews, I hunted down Next Stop, Reloville: Life Inside America's New Rootless Professional Class . The book is well-written and researched. It provides an interesting look at the "relo" lifestyle of many Americans, and Kilborn hammers home his thesis of the negative impact on communities like Alpharetta, Georgia.

That said, I still had to slog through it and was dissatisfied at the end. I felt the way I do when I occasionally see a children's film that's 1 hour and 30 minutes when there's enough content to make a 45-minute film. The topic of relos, who move every three to five years and thus have no connection to their communities, would be a fascinating New Yorker article. It's not enough to sustain a 272-page book, at least not with a bit more meat.

Part of the problem may be that the bulk of Kilborn's interviews and research took place a few years ago. Normally this wouldn't make a big difference, but you wonder what's happened to people who got laid off or can't move up as quickly as they used to.

My biggest unanswered question about Next Stop, Reloville: Life Inside America's New Rootless Professional Class is that I never quite understood why companies like UPS want to move people from city to city. Isn't there a benefit from promoting within a branch, or having people become connected to other business people in a community?