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

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.

I sat down to read Peter Kilborn's book, Next Stop, Reloville, and finished it in one long, riveting sitting. The families profiled were both familiar and strange. "Is this the world around us?" I kept asking. So many moves, so much debt, so many drives to practice fields in huge vehicles, the names of which I did not recognize, to the assistant cheerleaders squad practice, soccer games, etc. A major value of the book is that it clearly defines a new slice of American society only alluded to before. Karl Marx did not have the analytical tools available to Kilborn, nor the seasoned judgment. The writing was the best part of the book for me, the clear development, lively attention to detail, crow's eye for telling illustration, one line quote that says it all, etc. And the absurdity of the author being plunked down in so many weird settings, accurately pointing out their features without making fun of them. It represents a lively and important read. The megachurches were of little help to most of the vividly portrayed personalities in this book. You could park your SUV outside, get a Starbucks coffee on the way in, and listen to a motivational talk, but not face more challenging issues Kilborn's characters raise in reflecting on their hectic lives. Ultimately, the book does a brilliant job of juxtaposing the familiar with the strange, the predicable with a whole new world and culture of the relocated, of which so many of us are a part, without ever knowing it. Frederick Quinn

This book is a pleasure to read for several reasons: it's well written, has lots of interesting facts and figures that haven't been presented together elsewhere, captures an important slice of our culture's makeup and gives an in-depth look into the lives of people whom you quickly come to care about. Intimate stories told without judgment make the reader feel like an unseen guest in other peoples' lives. Like a movie script without dialog, the well crafted descriptions open the homes of people striving to do the best so they can have the best and provide the best for their children. Having recently attended a reunion and being a child in a stay-put family who had friends who kept disappearing just when you and your mom were really good friends with them, I feel the ghost-like quality of their existence. This book records a phenomenon that will not go away and will continue to impact our culture in increasingly significant ways. I appreciate Kilborn's push to make visible the multi-faceted impact. Although it's more entertaining than the textbooks in my day, this book should be required reading for all majors in business, counseling, sociology and urban planning. I'm eager to read Kilborn's sequel to find out what stop comes after Reloville.

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.