Relating to the article, that quote always makes me sad. I moved at 12, I didn't have friends. I feel like I missed something I can never get back.
I've made the concious decision to keep my children in the same school, despite moving several times in the same area since I rent.
Luckily that changed with high school, where more freedom was offered and so I found new friendships easier to make. I was eventually able to make at few friends, one of whom has been lifelong, by random happenstance of lunch tables. Interestingly, my wife had roughly the same experience of losing all her friends at the start of middle school and not really rebuilding until high school.