Comment by cosmic_cheese
1 year ago
This is probably a factor, but I think it’s a mistake to treat cities not being suited for raising children as a hard, immutable fact. They’re bad because rent continues to soar which clashes on two fronts (kids are expensive already and increase space requirements) and we as a society have decided to build our urban spaces (suburbs included) to be explicitly not friendly to children, families, or anybody not driving and to instead favor adults with money to spend. These are things we could change, should we want to.
The other thing to look at is why people have migrated into cities, and the answer is pretty simple: it’s where the good employment prospects are. The further yet get away from urban cores the worse those get: fewer jobs, worse compensation and benefits, greater risk of being stuck between jobs for long periods of time. Anybody worried about birthrates should be embracing remote work and making sure they compensate their employees well.
It's not just rent, it's also transportation. Transporting young kids with a car is easy, public transportation is much harder until they are 10 or so.
For example try transporting a sleepy kid, or more than 1 young kid at the same time.
Cities are cars don't get along very well, which makes them less friendly to kids.
Suburbs are really nice for kids, basically zero car traffic, you can play in the street, easily go to parks. And when the parents need to take you far you have a car available.
Transportation can be a challenge, but I don’t agree that a car is a requirement. When I’m in Japan it’s common to see parents carting around a kid or two on an appropriately kitted out bike for example. That wouldn’t be as practical in a sprawling suburb, but it can work in denser cities.
> Suburbs are really nice for kids, basically zero car traffic, you can play in the street, easily go to parks. And when the parents need to take you far you have a car available.
This varies a lot depending on the suburb. There are many that are endless house-deserts where you’re not doing anything without a ride. The one where I live is much more broken up, but sidewalk coverage is patchy at best.
Fertility rates can be wildly swung by outliers, and while it is possible to walk with five kids under the age of six, it is a maneuver that requires substantial logistical support or specialized equipment (which can be as hard or harder to store than a car).
https://www.communityplaythings.com/products/outdoor/kinderv... Things like this are 1% or so of the cost of a suburban house! That’s noticeable!
> When I’m in Japan it’s common to see parents carting around a kid or two on an appropriately kitted out bike for example.
Yes, and now look at their fertility rates.
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Suburbs might not be friendly to children but they're quite friendly to the parents of small children. When you're pressed for time and need to cook dinner or something it's super convenient to be able to send the kids into the back yard or their own separate bedrooms, knowing they'll be fairly safe and contained for a while.
Remote work is a great option for many people but it simply isn't feasible for any job that can't be done through a computer. We should set economic policies that encourage job growth in suburban and rural areas rather than trying to squeeze everything into a handful of dense cities.