America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#441

Post by magduf » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

wcunning wrote: post #220

volkl48 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not a 4 year old, but NYC kids grow up way more independent than in many places in the US. Middle school kids taking public transit by themselves is pretty normal.

It was rare enough that allowing a kid to do that made Lenore Skenazy [0] famous not that long ago... [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenore_Skenazy

From my reading of your link, it looks like the incident that brought her fame/infamy happened in 2008. That's right during America's obsession with helicopter parenting, so the timeline makes sense.

If you go back to the 1980s, what she did wouldn't have been that remarkable. In that time, kids like me were gone from home for hours, walking or riding bikes for miles away from home, and we didn't have cellphones for our parents to keep tabs on us. Statistics show that crime rates were much higher (they peaked in the mid-70s, and have been falling since); the difference is that Americans just weren't paranoid back then the way they are now.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#442

Post by Kalium » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

raducu wrote: post #438

Kalium wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704187604576288... Fairness aside, the question of if it works seems reasonably well-studied. Among other things it can really decrease the disruption to someone's professional life from becoming a parent, which is something that leads a lot of people to delay or avoid doing so.

I'm all for free child care/free education, I was not saying that doesn't work, I know it helps a lot. I was making the point that tax deductions don't work because poor people don't pay a lot of taxes and their tax deductions won't cover the costs of day care. If we want to promote upwards mobility, free education is a must.

I believe the goal in the current discussion is fertility, rather than upwards mobility. Perhaps I've misunderstood?

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#443

Post by Karrot_Kream » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #347

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of people, the city is automatically Manhattan or downtown Chicago. They can't fathom anything but that or a suburb, and to be fair America is very bad at making anything else.

This is such a west coast bubble mindset. Basically everywhere west of the Missouri river is littered with 2nd and 3rd tier cities. Many of them are even within a reasonable commuting distance of the nearest major economic hub (though the southeast definitely has a lot of sprawl going on).

Not just West Coast, but Western US. West of the Midwest, and everything becomes vastly more rural.