People staying in the city to raise kids (suburban, market, subway)
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Over the last year and half, I've seen many stories about the population growth in alot of the major cities in this country. Almost 100% of the articles talk about how young adults are moving back in to the city. Alot of them are waiting longer to get married and are more focused on careers. I think that is great for the cities, but here is my question, I havent seen any studies about people staying in the city once they get married and have kids. I guess what I'm asking is, are people starting to stay in the city once they have kids, or are they still migrating to the suburbs once the kids reach school age?
I know people in both camps. Some who stay were going to send their kids to private schools anyway; others live in neighborhoods with better elementary schools and plan to send their kids to private schools after elementary school. And some cities do have pretty decent public school systems.
One factor for people staying might be that the proliferation of magnet and charter schools in larger cities gives parents choices in the public school system beyond the neighborhood school. If I had kids and lived in the city, I'd be trying like heck to get them into the magnet schools.
It varies by family and by city. I grew up in a city and most, although not all, of my childhood friends have chosen to raise their kids in the city (either that city or in other cities). A few have moved to suburbs, primarily because of price. (this is in a city with easy access to good public schools, both neighborhood and magnets, which makes a big difference). When we lived in DC it seemed like a number of parents in our neighborhood were willing to go with public for elementary school, but found the middle and high school options more problematic. When we lived in San Francisco the lottery system for elementary schools (and then lack of any neighborhood schools) coupled with high housing prices meant that I knew a lot of people who reluctantly gave up and headed to the 'burbs.
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.
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. I imagine Washington D.C. is the same, but maybe they've improved since I left the area (doubt it, though)
NYC, as usual, is a special case. While it has only one school district, the quality of the schools varies from school to school within the district. So it's similar to a multi-district area in that people want to get their kids into the good schools. They also have a high school choice program so for high school, it doesn't matter as much where you live. And NYC probably has a much greater number of rich people who send their kids to private school; I'm sure that's the destination for most of the yuppie-guppies in Tribeca now.
NYC, as usual, is a special case. While it has only one school district, the quality of the schools varies from school to school within the district. So it's similar to a multi-district area in that people want to get their kids into the good schools. They also have a high school choice program so for high school, it doesn't matter as much where you live. And NYC probably has a much greater number of rich people who send their kids to private school; I'm sure that's the destination for most of the yuppie-guppies in Tribeca now.
My understanding is Boston works kinda like NYC It's well-known for having some of the best city public schools in the country. There are great options for bright children there, as essentially by middle school everyone who achieves highly on a standardized test is slotted into magnet-like schools.
There is a dark side, however. A few months back, we visited some friends of my wife. Their daughter is 10, and has failed two years in a row to place into the "smart kid" school system. She's not a terrible student, just average, and for the most part her parents are okay with that. But they worry that most of her friends are being drained out of her classes, which means she won't have anyone in her peer group at school particularly smart and/or hard working. So they're considering if they can afford to move to Brookline, although it would nearly bankrupt them to buy the cheapest house on the market there.
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.
Perhaps. But concentration on raw numbers alone doesn't pay attention to how the character of the populations has changed. Washington DC has unquestionably gotten whiter in the last decade, while the surrounding suburbs have gotten far less white. Given there was no white people baby boom in DC during this period, and the overall population has grown slightly, the only conclusion is a disproportionate share of migrants to DC are white, and they are staying there, while much of the black population has continued to move to PG and other suburban areas.
That's certainly a difference: cities are whiter. But that has nothing to do with the notion that America has undergone a complete paradigm shift in the last 20 years (I have read this in other threads, not saying that you said this specifically).
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Originally Posted by eschaton
I think there's reason to believe that within a generation, moving to the suburbs may not be the choice of those who are white and wealthy or upper/middle class.
This is true. But this has been the case for a long time. The difference to me, it seems, is that the educated SWPL class is larger than it was 30 to 50 years ago. Whereas our grandfathers worked in mills and had a family of six by the age of 29, we're working in air-conditioned offices, traveling the world on credit cards, and blowing money fast on Ikea products and organic foods. Still, the SWPL class, while larger than in days past, represents a tiny minority of the American population.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
I don't see any flagging of suburban aspirations among the working class, or people of color in general, so I do admit the lion's share of families will continue to want to locate in the suburbs, particularly when over half of all children are now "minority."
I don't think "minority" has much to do with it. You still have a lot of lower-class white people who will continue to live in places like Manassas, Burtonsville, or Olney, Maryland. It's just that these people are largely removed from the field of view of the urban, SWPL class. It's common to hear a DC SWPL remark, "Ew. I never go outside of the Beltway!" They don't have (or at least pretend they don't have) any knowledge of or association with those people who watch "Idol," shop at Wal-Mart, and put Bryan Jumbo Hot Dogs on the grill for the Fourth.
I suppose some lived with their parents until they got married, then bought a house. Still, you'd expect mo
The interesting question is what will happen when the kids of these new urbanists hit school age. The old conventional wisdom is they'll move to the burbs, but by that time (adding together delayed marriage and childbirth), most of the parents will be in their early-to-late 30s. People are pretty set in their ways by then, and I expect a surprising number will stay and jump through whatever hoops they need to (private school, magnets, charters, moving to a part of the city with better schools, etc).
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.
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