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America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

theatlantic.com

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Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#301

Post by saiya-jin »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #262
tempsy wrote: post #200

Such a bad take. The actual "elite" in urban centers are the ones walking around with strollers. Have a kid in the big city is the ultimate flex. No one else has kids because they can barely afford to live there themselves, let alone support a kid in it. Edit: Also, it's not as if the author failed to mention that it's expensive to raise families in the city. It's that he says "yes it's really expensive to raise kids…

Well, good point, but you should be more precise: strollers with HUMAN KIDS in them. I swear that at least one in two, perhaps even more, of these strollers today tend to have dogs in them. At least in San Francisco.

Seriously? Is there some actual sane reason, ie protecting dog from scorching sun, or people are just bonkers?

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#302

Post by belorn »

clairity wrote: post #9
tropo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'll do it though. It used to be that the cities had lots of single-income families. They only had to compete with each other in the bidding war for good housing. Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes, so now we have lots of two-income households in that bidding war. Same-sex couples also became legal, adding even more two-income households. Meanwhile, low-cost forms of housing were l…

> "Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes..." the argument that dual-income households becoming necessities for home ownership and raising a family is plausible, if unsupported. but the quoted causal relationship above is not even plausible, let alone supported. women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions and support their families, just like men. other soc…

> Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes

>> women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions and support their families

From a historical perspective, women entered the job market because a world war (ww1) consumed the pool of available men through drafting them to die on the front line and having a war engine that increasingly needed more and more resources.

We are talking about a change from ~20% to almost 50% over the time span of 4 years. Neither birth control nor cultural ambitions has that fast effect on society. War does.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#303

Post by [deleted] »

nikanj wrote: post #287
stevenjgarner wrote: post #285

I don't live in a big city or an urban area. I live in a small midwestern town, population 10,000. I paid $40,000 for my 4-bedroom house. I don't have a mortgage. I have TWO gigabit optical Internet connections for which I pay less than $70 per month - since the 1990's! I work remotely only occasionally visiting the fancy places you all speak of, wondering why you put up with what you put up with. I employ several pr…

Are there jobs in that town? That seems to make or break a small town.

[deleted]

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#304

Post by tomohawk »

I've known so many young couples who loved being in the city, and then they had kids. Once they realized the schools were terrible and that there was no chance of improving them, they moved to the burbs. It was either that, or mom got mugged and there was no staying after that.

In either case, poorly conceived and run city government institutions were the primary cause. The single party system of special interests that controls most cities is ridiculous.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#305

Post by stevenjgarner »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #289
nikanj wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there jobs in that town? That seems to make or break a small town.

Yes there are jobs. I have clients in small towns all over the midwest and there are plenty of jobs in all those towns. It is so very hard to find employees willing to work! I think my point though is that given the nature of this HN space, most of the "readers" have the skills to work remotely from anywhere. Make yourself a valuable and treasured resource and employers will want you to work, even if it is over a con…

One resource to select rural towns where broadband is available is the USDA Telecommunications Program Funded Service Areas map: https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/all-programs/telec...

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#306

Post by iguy »

pmart123 wrote: post #211
tempsy wrote: post #200

Such a bad take. The actual "elite" in urban centers are the ones walking around with strollers. Have a kid in the big city is the ultimate flex. No one else has kids because they can barely afford to live there themselves, let alone support a kid in it. Edit: Also, it's not as if the author failed to mention that it's expensive to raise families in the city. It's that he says "yes it's really expensive to raise kids…

“violent downtowns typified by the ‘mean streets’ of the 1970s became clean and safe in the 1990s” While I’m not trying to be overly critical, he is also off base with his violent crime statistics as the nineties had the highest aggregate number of murders up until the end of the decade.

The more charitable reading is "became safe over the course of the 90s". The huge decline was late-90s, although as you say the peak was early-90s.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#307

Post by saiya-jin »

jinushaun wrote: post #67
madhadron wrote: post #14

I look at it a little differently. The urban cores in the USA are actively hostile places for anyone to be. You step outside your door...into an empty hallway of doors. You take an elevator or stairs down to a place with a few mailboxes, then step outside. Outside, you have a narrow strip of concrete, possibly with a few trees, that you are allowed to inhabit. Beyond it is as asphalt with two ton steel contraptions w…

I’m raising a child in NYC right now. What is this dystopia you are describing? It’s the opposite of my personal experience. NYC is such a kid friendly place to raise kids: Museums, zoos, aquariums, free events for kids, concerts just for babies, parks, swimming pools, little league, soccer league, skate parks, etc… we have it all. I can’t fathom how people raise kids in the suburbs. They must be so bored… You have a…

No worries this is a common topic - city folks can't comprehend what the heck is so great in non-city life, and folks that grew up close to nature, open places and good old lack of concrete everywhere can't see an appeal in living in city.

I'd say look for a cross-section of both if you can - city so vibrant that it offers 10x (or 100x) more culture, events, activities, jobs etc. than you can possibly cover, while having walking distance to amazing swimming (at least in summer), great nature and mountains within quick drive distance for the weekends, or where traffic jams mean usually at most 1 bottleneck street getting slow a bit twice a day for an hour. Those places are rare but they do exist.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#309

Post by chrisseaton »

jinushaun wrote: post #67
madhadron wrote: post #14

I look at it a little differently. The urban cores in the USA are actively hostile places for anyone to be. You step outside your door...into an empty hallway of doors. You take an elevator or stairs down to a place with a few mailboxes, then step outside. Outside, you have a narrow strip of concrete, possibly with a few trees, that you are allowed to inhabit. Beyond it is as asphalt with two ton steel contraptions w…

I’m raising a child in NYC right now. What is this dystopia you are describing? It’s the opposite of my personal experience. NYC is such a kid friendly place to raise kids: Museums, zoos, aquariums, free events for kids, concerts just for babies, parks, swimming pools, little league, soccer league, skate parks, etc… we have it all. I can’t fathom how people raise kids in the suburbs. They must be so bored… You have a…

> Museums, zoos, aquariums, free events for kids, concerts just for babies, parks, swimming pools, little league, soccer league, skate parks, etc…

You have to have all these things, because the children in a city can't just run off on their own and have to be marshalled and entertained at every step. Living in the suburbs I used to just go out every day and play in the woods and hills with my friends and we entertained themselves. Hardly boring!

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#310

Post by lumberingjack »

jinushaun wrote: post #67
madhadron wrote: post #14

I look at it a little differently. The urban cores in the USA are actively hostile places for anyone to be. You step outside your door...into an empty hallway of doors. You take an elevator or stairs down to a place with a few mailboxes, then step outside. Outside, you have a narrow strip of concrete, possibly with a few trees, that you are allowed to inhabit. Beyond it is as asphalt with two ton steel contraptions w…

I’m raising a child in NYC right now. What is this dystopia you are describing? It’s the opposite of my personal experience. NYC is such a kid friendly place to raise kids: Museums, zoos, aquariums, free events for kids, concerts just for babies, parks, swimming pools, little league, soccer league, skate parks, etc… we have it all. I can’t fathom how people raise kids in the suburbs. They must be so bored… You have a…

I had all that and I could pretend I was doing any of it in my backyard at any time with my imagination and the free space to roam I was given. Kids need to pick up sticks and pretend they are tools or imaginary things, kids need to run free and climb trees unsupervised.IMO
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