I've been wondering, if you start out with a new/empty town, will sims randomly move in? Or move in at all?

Assuming you have Story Progression on, and empty houses, yes.

It's controlled by Story Progression, so if you have a story progression mod like Pescado's or Twallan's, the behavior will be different.

Even with story progression off, if you have houses with a bed in them, Sims will move in.

I have people moving in even with awesome and story progression off, but this might be just a configuration error on my part.

No, if you don't have Story Progression, either EAxian or from a third-party option, nobody moves in or out. Ever. Sims will be generated as coworkers, but they will just remain offworld forever.

They don't move between houses, but all the furnished houses in my town got townie residents even thou story progression is off. In my previous hood I just started deleting beds and fridges to make the house un-livable for townies so the houses would stay empty.

This has not been my experience with story progression disabled. Without story, my empty houses stay empty regardless of how they are furnished.

ani, you probably have a mod you're not aware of

I've played with Story Progression off several times and I don't have AM or MC. Those blasted townies/npc's move into empty lots, empty houses and my empty city/world populates. Who needs an empty house with a bed? I haven't done it in awhile but last time I did, my empty lots were occupied. Heck some of them moved in with my single sims in a house not big enough to have more than 1 sim!! I remember switching families to one of my bachelor sims. He had a one bedroom house and I had fixed it up into a really nice bachelor pad. I hadn't played him for like a couple of earth days and there were 6 people living there and part of the household!!

That could be role immigration.

If you happen to have a Stylist Station or such in town, those types of sims will automatically move into empty homes.

You can disable that by altering the EA "NpcRoles" file, and replacing the "<RoleFillFrom>" with "Townies" rather than "Residents".

This was helpful, thank you will have to check it out.

I was havin the same problem when I downloaded custom town "Anne Arbour". No sims would populate until I turned story progression on. :3 I'm such a noob

Cool thanks for the necro.

That reminds me of when everyone said story progression was broken when the game first came out but I never played with it off :p

And here I am trying to fend off new immigrants by passing a law in the city hall declaring all sims migrating in without my discrete approval is deemed illegal.

Ok enough with the illegal immigrant joke. But sure, one can see clearly the social issues of 2011 vs 2014: not enough migrant workers vs too many illegal immigrants.

Yes, they do, and that's one of the things I dislike. I's like every time a house becomes vacant, some townie with a horrible outfit moves in. I tolerate them until A) they start forming relationships with the real people in town, or B) I need their house. At that point, they die unceremonious.