More than forty years after the publication of Zelinsky’s article in the Geographical Review, the hypothesis of the mobility transition is still very much alive.1 As it is frequently cited in migration related publications and is still an important part of the curriculum in geography departments all over the world, it is likely that the theory will be around for a while. Perhaps the greatest appeal of Zelinsky’s theory of the mobility transition in past and present lies in the fact that it seems to fit well with an image of the nineteenth century that is still predominant: a century of rapid and large social and economic change. Many of these ideas stem from the work of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, but later scholars have also supported this notion, explicitly or implicitly. The idea of an economic take-off, as proposed in Walt Rostow seminal book, was adopted by many others after him, for instance in the important work of Dean and Cole.2 In this particular view or paradigm, industrialization could be regarded as a ‘dramatic culmination to a long-gathering process of change, rather as the cylinder may be charged with a head of steam quite quickly but only if the water has long been heating’.3 The notion of a sudden societal transformation supports the still prevalent idea of the nineteenth century as a hinge point in social and economic change, and so indeed does Zelinsky’s theory to a great extent.