Peasant mobility, local migration and premodern urbanization

The scale of human movement at the local and regional levels in agrarian states, called 'local migration' by Charles Tilly, can be quite extensive. I review several characteristics of such movement, culled from a range of disciplines and historical contexts. Three spatial patterns are examined: village nucleation; rural-to-urban migration; and intra-urban movements. The movement of people into settlements - whether villages or cities - should not be viewed as an extraordinary occurrence requiring special explanation; instead, it is the normal concomitant of broader patterns of local and regional spatial mobility. The likelihood that individuals and households would move was determined largely by the effect of economic hardship at the household and local levels.