We have set out in this study to explore an old question from a new perspective. The relationship between migration and urban change in Europe's long nineteenth century has already been the subject of considerable scholarly attention and debate. While recent historiography has dismissed the once powerful image of urbanization as a one-off transfer of impoverished villagers to overcrowded cities, this work has instead stressed the complex nature of migration patterns, the strong degree of continuity with earlier migration traditions, and the relative success of urban migrants. Yet, however illuminating these revisions have been in many respects, it remains difficult to reconcile their emphasis on continuity and success with the speed and intensity of societal disruption that was taking place in Europe's long nineteenth century. This study therefore aimed to re-explore the dynamics of urban migration by combining an elaborate conceptual framework with an instructive case study in a way that could address and transcend the paradoxes of continuity and change, of structure and agency, and of winners and losers. The setting of the case study was the city of Antwerp in present-day Belgium between 1760 and 1860, when it changed from a medium-sized textile centre to a booming international port town – a setting which was deemed particularly relevant because of the profundity of societal change, and because of the availability of exceptionally rich source materials which allowed us to reconstruct the main dynamics and compositions of urban migration flows over a century-long period. What, then, has this specific case study taught us with regard to the relationship between migration and urbanization in the transition from pre-industrial to industrial society, and with regard to the limits, constraints and dynamics of migration as an adaptive strategy in periods of structural social change?

A first general dynamic that was confirmed by the case study is that push and pull conditions at macro level were a main determining force of migration change, by shaping the main constraints and opportunities within which households and individuals operated.