"A Footloose generation of the best educated"

From a great survey on America by The Economist, hard on the heels of the Atlantic Monthly's spring survey by a French philosopher in the tradition of de Tocqueville (Demoncracy in America, definitely on the must read list).

Centrifugal forces | Economist.com: "The country's size and wealth, combined with its meritocratic traditions and technological prowess, have made it unusually easy for Americans to move around in search of new opportunities. “In the United States,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, “a man builds a house in which to spend his old age, and he sells it before the roof is on; he plants a garden and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing...he embraces a profession and gives it up; he settles a place and soon afterwards leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere.” In some ways, this restlessness in the midst of plenty is America's most remarkable feature."