“Location, location, location," the real-estate agents' mantra, appears to have become the explanation of choice for economic mobility in early twenty-first-century America–or so one might conclude from the media reaction to an important study released by The Equality of Opportunity Project (EOP) this summer. That study landed smack in the middle of an expanding national discussion, and considerable poll-measured anxiety, about whether America is still the vaunted land of opportunity of its national mythology. The EOP report offers some valuable explanations for why it might not be. Unfortunately, many of its more interesting findings were blurred by a national media hungry for strong headlines and a sweeping, bottom-line explanation.