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Indianapolis Star Experts: Career-driven moves fray families' sense
of place The Rixies are reluctantly leaving the home they love in Carmel, while the just-arrived LaPierres are hoping to finally settle down in their new residence in Avon. Driven by employment prospects, the Rixies and LaPierres are part of a white-collar work force that has grown more mobile than ever. Thousands of career-minded households have relocated either into or out of the Indianapolis area alone in the past decade. Nationally, the numbers are in the millions. While promotions or new, better-paying jobs typically mean new wealth for these families, experts say the increasingly rootless habits of Americans has come at a price, leading to declining participation in neighborhood organizations and local politics and frayed connections to the community at large. Examining these costs is the theme of this year's Spirit & Place Festival, a series of annual seminars and other events sponsored by The Polis Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The festival begins Friday and runs through Nov. 20. Organizers decided to make "Moving and Staying" the focus of the 2005 festival because, they say, the destabilizing aspects of job mobility have deepened the area's struggle to retain its best and brightest. "The overall impetus in society is towards mobility, of searching for prosperity," said Scott Russell Sanders, the festival's moderator, an Indiana University English professor and author of the book "Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World." "(But) we are so enamored of mobility that we don't recognize what is being lost in the process," he said. While how best to woo and retain the professional class is at the heart of the discussion, the festival's centerpiece also will explore the emotional and spiritual consequences of constant motion. Moving and staying On average, about 3 million people nationwide move each year for work reasons, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The latest population figures show that the number of people from out-of-state who moved into the metro area in recent years barely has kept up with those leaving for other states. Nearly 180,000 taxpayers relocated to the metro area from outside the state from 1992 to 2004, according to the Internal Revenue Service. A nearly identical number, about 178,000, left the area for another state. By contrast, about 510,000 taxpayers moved to the nine-county area from within Indiana during the same period, while about 467,000 left for other parts of the state, the IRS data showed. To job recruiters and other experts, the numbers underscore that the region, while attractive to Hoosiers, remains unknown to professionals who might be sizing up Indianapolis from afar. And despite its amenities, the presence of corporations such as Eli Lilly and Co. and its status as the state's biggest metropolis, Indianapolis continues to be viewed as a professional steppingstone to somewhere else, Sanders and others said. "We don't have the reputation we deserve. And reputation is important because it's the first step in competing for talent," said Brian Payne, president of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, a nonprofit grant-giving organization. Fast-growing Hamilton County, which has emerged as the region's suburban job powerhouse, is among those grappling with the problem, said Jeff Burt, president of the Hamilton County Alliance, a business advocacy group. The county has added about 50,000 jobs since 1990 but has struggled to carve out a national reputation as a destination. "The thinking is: If people are in the early or middle (years of their) careers, one of the most prevalent ways of moving up is moving out," Burt said. Waning interest in long-established community service organizations is another negative aspect of job mobility, experts say. Nancy Hershman, a member of the Kiwanis Club of Greenwood who works in the club's Indianapolis chapter office, said membership in general has declined each year for the past decade. The Indianapolis chapter, she said, has about 310 members now, a total that has dwindled by about three to five members annually. While not the only reason, job mobility has been a principal driver in the slow erosion of its membership base, she said. In the past, the club would have an easier time replenishing its ranks from the community. Now, with the populace less tied to the community, there is less emphasis on community service in the workplace and beyond. "Companies used to put a very high priority on community service and community service organizations," Hershman said. "Now, there just isn't that much interest." Not happy to be leaving Career-focused households such as those of Robert and Holly Rixie, a young couple from Memphis, Tenn., who moved to Carmel last year, provide a window into the mobility dilemma. Robert Rixie, a rising manager in the corporate offices of Terminix,
a pest-control company, seized an opportunity in February 2004 to help
open a new division here. That outlook, in large part, shaped decisions ranging from trivial (holding off on buying Colts season tickets) to important (holding off on starting a family). "It was almost like we didn't want to get too attached to our friends because we knew we were only going to be there for a limited time," Robert Rixie said. Even so, the couple was intrigued by the prospect of exploring a wholly unfamiliar city and region. And, in time, they grew fond of the Indianapolis area. They took pains to decorate their Carmel house, cultivated new friendships and became members at the local country club. Holly Rixie, 26, pursued a career as a model. The couple also carved out hobbies. Among their favorites: riding their bicycles along the Monon Trail. Six months into their stay, on a spectacular autumn day during one of their frequent Monon bike rides, the two finally felt at home. "My wife looked at me and she said, 'I'm really happy here,' " recalls Rixie, 28. Yet, this fall, less than two years after their move, they found themselves packing up for Tampa, Fla. Rixie was promoted and relocated with Terminix. While Rixie was happy with the promotion, his company left him no choice about the move. "I would have given up the promotion to stay in Indianapolis," Rixie said. Lost connections While job mobility is hardly a new phenomenon, observers say the trend has been accelerated by a collection of forces ranging from higher education levels and shorter employee tenures to increasing job specialization. "If your intellectual capital is your stock and trade, then there's a good chance that what you do is going to have a wider market than just local labor," said William T. Dickens, a senior fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "A lot more people are finding themselves in a national marketplace than ever before, particularly if they have any kind of specialization," he said. Moving from one city to the next, from one job to another, makes it hard for people to become deeply involved in affairs beyond their doorsteps. Glenn Sparks, a Purdue University communications professor, said people, reluctant to make connections that they know they'll be forced to break, try to fill the void in various ways. That's why civic club memberships, as well as neighborly talks at the grocery store or coffee shop, have been replaced by technology: voices over a cell phone, e-mail, time in online chat rooms. "We (do this because we) crave the connections we lose when we leave our relationships behind," said Sparks, co-author of the book, "Refrigerator Rights: Creating Connections and Restoring Relationships." Finding familiarity and establishing mainstream community ties is perhaps most difficult within the region's growing minority population, observers say. While not unique to Indianapolis, the challenge is acute, given the region's homogenous profile compared with places such as Chicago or New York. "We have to sell a message: 'Yes, you can go to Chicago or New York if you want, but things are already set there,' " said K.P. Singh, a noted Sikh artist and community activist. "Here, we are just creating a climate of diversity and culture. Be one of the pioneers." Yet another fresh start Just as the Rixies appear to be moving along a path that likely will include more moves, the LaPierre family is hoping to end its transient lifestyle. Newcomers to Avon from the Chicago area, the LaPierres moved here in September. A native of South Bend, Frank LaPierre, a 47-year-old father of two young children, can recite with almost resume precision the places he has lived: southwest Michigan; Chicago; Dallas; White Plains, N.Y. (twice); Lemont, Ill. All of the moves, which occurred over a 15-year span, were work-related. This move is, too: LaPierre is helping to launch a food wholesaling and distribution business here. But there are broader reasons, as well. Both he and his wife, Dawn, 35, are more than eager to settle down. The relentless relocating, LaPierre said, has made it "difficult on my wife to develop an ecosystem of friends." They have few friends they keep in touch with elsewhere, and they have had little time to become connected to any one place, he said. "Because of my almost 100-percent bend toward my career, that made things very difficult from a community perspective," Frank LaPierre said. LaPierre said he intentionally waited until later in life to marry and have children to advance in his career. But he admits the endless moves have grown tiresome. "Our relocations have been a point of contention," he said. "It's almost a dark joke in our family." This latest move, he said, is meant to stick. He plans to become involved in charity and nonprofit work, while Dawn, presently a stay-at-home mom, wants to resume a career as a physical therapist. Now ex-residents of Indianapolis, the Rixies too have begun entertaining thoughts of where they might like to settle one day. "Before, when we talked about a place to raise our kids, Indianapolis was never in the running," Robert Rixie said. "Now, we would definitely consider moving back."
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