People staying in the city to raise kids (metro, suburb, downtown)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is what I've observed. People who've lived in a city on in to their 30s like and value the lifestyle, and we want it for our kids. Certainly some still jump to the suburbs (and many then complain about how boring it is), but many do just as you've described. And what my wife and I have found, as have most of our friends, is that the schools can work for our kids. Both my 11 year old and 9 year old speak often about how much they like living in a walkable neighborhood, how they like riding on the subway, how they wouldn't want to live somewhere that wasn't like that. It is wonderful watching them develop these values.
None of my friends with children still live in the city. My best friend's wife is due in August and they've already bought a place in New Jersey. One of my friends moved from a hip DC neighborhood to Silver Spring after they had their first child. They all complain about: (1) cost, (2) space and (3) schools. I think raising a family in the city sounds cool to a lot of people, but at the end of the day, it's not as appealing as it seemed when they were younger and childless. It's one thing to walk past guys on the corner shooting dice and getting high when you're single and another thing to have your 8 year old kid walk past it.
The only people I really see staying in the city are the uber-wealthy ones who have enough cash to live in toney neighborhoods like Tenleytown or Foxhall.
When we thought we were going to be living in NYC (which would be my top choice, but a job move dictated otherwise...) we realized that there are a LOT of families with school-age kids living in Manhattan. And not just the wealthy families who can go through the crazy private school option, or poor kids in the housing projects, but a ton of middle-class families (and rich but not super rich) who are still willing to live in smaller apartments and go with public schools. I don't think that's anything particularly new, although certain neighborhoods are seeing huge growth in their school-age population, and I know they are opening some new schools in parts of lower Manhattan to ease overcrowding. With high-rent cities like that, however, cost becomes a huge issue, especially for families who want to have more than two kids.
Agreed. Plenty of people have always chosen to raise their kids in the city, including public school as part of that package. To be honest, I think the schools became an excuse for larger socio-economic issues that drove some people out of the city. Certainly in Boston, busing and desegregation caused a lot of people to opt out of the public school system. Although many reasons may have been involved, it's probably easiest to just say "the schools are no good," and leave it at that. This becomes a self-sustaining cycle, as parents with means withdraw their children, leaving only the more difficult to educate kids in the system (more on this bellow).
Quote:
Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown
My friend plans to keep his 9 year old in city schools while supplementing his education with his own instruction. He's a stay at home dad, which he's able to pull off because he and his wife bought their house for a small amount of cash.
The kid is pretty intelligent and polite. I think it's working. Additionally he is not part of the systemic segregation that occurs here. He will understand more about his city than the prep school kids.
This is a big part of why my wife and I decided to go with public schools in Boston. We felt strongly that there were things to learn about other people and the city that would come best from exposure. We took a leap of faith regarding academics, because we had heard all the horror stories, but in fact, the academics have been strong. I agree with another poster though, regarding the problem for kids who fall between the advanced category and the many special needs options. I think Boston does a good job on the high and low ends, maybe not as good for the more typical kid.
None of my friends with children still live in the city. My best friend's wife is due in August and they've already bought a place in New Jersey. One of my friends moved from a hip DC neighborhood to Silver Spring after they had their first child. They all complain about: (1) cost, (2) space and (3) schools. I think raising a family in the city sounds cool to a lot of people, but at the end of the day, it's not as appealing as it seemed when they were younger and childless. It's one thing to walk past guys on the corner shooting dice and getting high when you're single and another thing to have your 8 year old kid walk past it.
The only people I really see staying in the city are the uber-wealthy ones who have enough cash to live in toney neighborhoods like Tenleytown or Foxhall.
New York gentrification is happening differently from other places, however, in my experience, in that it's really an unfriendly place for someone middle class to live with kids unless they were grandfathered in by rent control.
Basically you have a horribly high cost of living, less space than even in other old Northeastern cities, and eventually have to find a 2 (or even worse, three) bedroom apartment, despite your kids not being able to chip in on rent at all. Where you can afford is probably almost the ghetto.
But there's plenty of other cities that this isn't the case in. I live in a safe, affordable city. The only thing I can say I dislike about it from the point of being a parent is wishing my backyard wasn't concrete (hopefully we'll get it out next year), and the neighborhood school being ****e (going for the magnet Montessori at the moment).
Philadelphia has some really good magnet schools, though, in a generally floundering and chaotic school district.
I am a product of a Philadelphia magnet school. Philly, I think, is not such a bad place to live if you're upper middle class. It's a lot easier for your kid to get into Central, Masterman or Northeast than it is to test into Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, or Boston Latin. And then there's a broad range of parochial schools that are not all that expensive.
None of my friends with children still live in the city. My best friend's wife is due in August and they've already bought a place in New Jersey. One of my friends moved from a hip DC neighborhood to Silver Spring after they had their first child. They all complain about: (1) cost, (2) space and (3) schools. I think raising a family in the city sounds cool to a lot of people, but at the end of the day, it's not as appealing as it seemed when they were younger and childless. It's one thing to walk past guys on the corner shooting dice and getting high when you're single and another thing to have your 8 year old kid walk past it.
The only people I really see staying in the city are the uber-wealthy ones who have enough cash to live in toney neighborhoods like Tenleytown or Foxhall.
I'm sure neither of us has a representative sample. But most of the people I know stayed when they had kids. Maybe Boston is a better choice than New York, but I've never seen rampant amounts of the so-called bad parts of urban life. A lot of those sidewalk dice games left a long time ago.
In Philadelphia, people who aren't poor don't send their kids to public schools, by and large. Anyone who has a choice either sends their kids to private schools or gets the heck out of the city.
This depends on how dumb your child is. There are enough magnets for the SWPL crowd in the city (which is very small compared to DC, SF or NYC). I mean, if your kid can't get into Central or Masterman, he's not getting into Yale, so you might as well send him to public school. It's soooooooo much harder trying to get your kid into a school like Wilson (DC) or Bronx Science (NYC) than it is to get him (her) into any of Philly's magnet schools. Cities like DC and NYC--which are full of Type-A parents who were Ivy League class valedictorians-- present much more of a challenge when it comes to getting your kids into the limited number of magnet schools.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nybbler
I imagine Washington D.C. is the same, but maybe they've improved since I left the area (doubt it, though)
DC is far tougher. For one, you only have one middle school (two if you're black) that most people are willing to send their kids to: Alice Deal. That's it. If you don't get into Deal, then off to the suburbs you go. Second, the private schools are much, much, much more expensive in DC than they are in Philly. The price of tuition at Archbishop Ryan High School this past academic year was $5,600. Tuition at Gonzaga was $18,500. Tuition at Stone Ridge was $20,250 for Pre-K. Tuition at Dematha was $13,950. And these are the cheap schools. Georgetown Prep, Sidwell Friends (Sasha, Malia and Chelsea Clinton's school), Cathedral, St. Albans or Georgetown Country Day can cost you upwards of $50,000 per year. They make Germantown Friends look like a joke.
I'm sure neither of us has a representative sample. But most of the people I know stayed when they had kids. Maybe Boston is a better choice than New York, but I've never seen rampant amounts of the so-called bad parts of urban life. A lot of those sidewalk dice games left a long time ago.
Well, I will say that many parents stay in the city until their children reach school age. But once they get past Pre-K they move to the burbs. I posted data on this in the DC forum a long time ago and people went beserk. It's not like the evidence ran completely contrary to what anyone with two eyes and a brain would see after spending a month in DC: you just don't see any white children beyond the age of 4 or 5. The OVERWHELMING majority of middle-school age children in the city are lower-income black and Hispanic.
My sisiter has taught at both pricey private schools and inner city public schools and she is convinced that the best indicator of a student's success is how involved the parents are in the education process.
Well, I will say that many parents stay in the city until their children reach school age. But once they get past Pre-K they move to the burbs. I posted data on this in the DC forum a long time ago and people went beserk. It's not like the evidence ran completely contrary to what anyone with two eyes and a brain would see after spending a month in DC: you just don't see any white children beyond the age of 4 or 5. The OVERWHELMING majority of middle-school age children in the city are lower-income black and Hispanic.
The city wont see a true revival until parents start staying in the city and sending kids to the public school that are normally a disaster. You are always going to have kids in the city who go to private school or go to the 1 or 2 good magnet schools that exist, but the majority of schools in the city are a joke and as soon as kids reach 4 or 5, its time to bail. There are too many kids and not enough good public schools in the city. In order for the city to make a come back, you need the 40 year old with 2 kids and a wife to stay. They normally have the higher income. Bringing a bunch of 22-23 years old who just graduated from college, with little money, is the not the tax base that you need.
My sisiter has taught at both pricey private schools and inner city public schools and she is convinced that the best indicator of a student's success is how involved the parents are in the education process.
I think most people who agree with that statement, but I think what you are leaving is also the enviroment the kids go to school in. I'm from new orleans, my parents were heavily involved in my education, but I also went to a catholic school. Had I gone to a public school, they still would have been involved, but I could have easily gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. i think thats also something parents look at. It not just the classes that the kids take, but also what type of teaching enviroment are they in. Would you want to send your kid to a school where they had metal detectors, or police having to come to the school constantly. I'm not saying this exist everywhere, but I'm just making the point that there are alot of schools where the teaching enviroment is not great for teaching and learning.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
