Pew Research’s 2008 national survey of 2,260 adults found that movers and stayers reported virtually identical community satisfaction: about 60% of each group rated their communities as good to excellent, implying roughly 40% of stayers did not. Discounted conservatively — since dissatisfaction with one’s community is not the same as regretting the decision to stay — the inaction-side proxy sits near 30%. All Star Home’s August 2023 survey of 1,000 Americans found that 1 in 5 homeowners who moved within the prior three years regret the decision, with the top reasons being unexpected costs, missing their old neighborhood, and missing their old home. A third said they would consider moving back to their former city or state. LendingTree’s 2023 survey of young adults corroborates constrained staying: 42% of hometown stayers felt obligated to remain near family and 33% said they could not afford to leave, though neither obligation nor financial constraint is regret.
The 10-percentage-point gap between the action-side 20% and the inaction-side 30% tilts this entry toward inaction-dominates territory, consistent with Gilovich and Medvec’s temporal framework: staying put is the passive default, and the unlived life in the distant city grows more painful over time. Yet the gap is modest, and the data is imperfect on both sides. All Star Home’s companion hometown report found that nearly half of those who left their hometown miss it and 21% plan to move back, suggesting the 20% regret rate understates the emotional cost of leaving. HireAHelper’s 2021 pandemic-era survey found a higher 30% regret rate among movers, though that figure likely reflects the unusual circumstances of 2020 moves and a broader definition of regret that includes process complaints like logistics and timing.
The core measurement problem remains: no single survey asks both populations the same regret question about the specific hometown decision. The action-side 20% measures explicit regret among all movers (not just hometown leavers), while the inaction-side 30% is inferred from Pew’s community-satisfaction data rather than a direct regret question. Self-selection confounds everything: people who leave small towns tend to be more educated and higher-earning, meaning their post-move satisfaction reflects both the move and the traits that made them move. Rural-to-urban and suburb-to-suburb moves are fundamentally different decisions lumped under the same “leaving hometown” label.