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March 25, 2005
Cities and Kids
The Times put cities on the front page yesterday, essentially pointing out the obvious and persistant fact, that our cities are still struggling to attract and keep middle class families - oh-so-especially in areas where immigrant or poorer families normally fill the school rooms. They are just priced right out of the entire city - e.g. San Fran. They point out, "having fewer children really diminishes the quality of life in a city." & "It's not so much a social problem as it is a demographic and financial problem". Surely everyone knows having a kid ain't cheap...
Such a problem that the 2nd UN-Habitat passed a somewhat feel good initiative to make cities more child friendly, because "The Conference declared that the well-being of children is the ultimate indicator of a healthy habitat. Ummm, no shit. How about addressing the underlying reasons cities are "unfriendly to children".
The Brookings Institute, in 2003, published an interesting interpretation of 2000 Census data on Seattle. Showing, as one would assume, that "fewer than 20 percent of city households contain children, and Seattle households are smaller than those in any other large U.S. city" & "Seattle's suburbs added over 100,000 households of all types over the decade." No new news...
In a similar article as the Times, the Blue Oregon chronicles the loss of children in Portland, noting, "1962, Portland had 81,000 kids in public schools. Today, enrollment stands at about 48,000 students."
Although, Fannie Mae, sees things more opportunistically, "In fact, the taxes generated by attracting childless households to the city can be used to improve school quality for families with children without adding any additional burden on school systems. Those who study housing impact find that the combination eases pressure on municipal budgets." One has got to wonder though, NYC has been throwing money at their schools for years. In many respects I see it as a diversity issue. Economic diversity amongst the students, not more money...
Even the suburban paper of note, USA Today, jumped on the kids and cities fray heating up the Metro news rooms, noting that nearly 15% of Atlanta's total population is college educated and aged 25-34.
Chicago has not sat out on the emptying, although "The City of Chicago gained population for the first time in fifty years because natural increase (the excess of births over deaths) was sufficient to offset losses from net out migration."
Surely one of the most quoted in the post election fall out was Joel Kotkin, apologist for Patio Man, and all around hack for suburban and exurban sprawl, stating, "Democrats swept the largely childless cities--true blue locales like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston, and Manhattan have the lowest percentages of children in the nation--but generally had poor showings in those places where families are settling down, notably in the sunbelt cities, exurbs, and outer suburbs of older metropolitan areas."
Finally, the excellent folks at The Next American City put the cities & kids issue on the front cover of their January issue... looking at the issue from a number of interersting angles. Rec'd.
Posted by jmarston at March 25, 2005 05:27 PM