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Jewish World Review March 30, 2005 / 19 Adar II, 5765 America's trendiest cities don't have to be childless By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
A good friend lives alone in a charming 1940s house. She bought
the cozy home 15 years ago from a couple who had raised four children there.
A real-estate agent recently told her that she would advertise the
three-bedroom house as a "starter home" or "condo alternative." In other
words, modern families of four don't want to live in the sort of place that
families of six once happily called home.
This story pops into my brain whenever I read that America's
spiffed-up urban neighborhoods can't attract families with children. The
hottest cities — the Portlands, Denvers and Austins — are said to be
becoming the most childless.
The main reason, we are told, is that middle-class families can
no longer afford to live in these areas. They've been priced out of the
neighborhoods now blessed with cute shops, good restaurants and plummeting
crime rates. Only young professionals and older retirees can afford to live
in them.
But is this true? Many of these same families are buying
gigantic places in exurbia that cost the same as, if not more than, a
traditional urban house. So price itself is not driving them out. They are
driving themselves to bigger houses.
The modest older home no longer fits the supersized American
Dream. To many, the middle-class standard has ballooned to five bedrooms,
four garages and a large playroom off an enormous kitchen. The average house
built in the 1950s was 1,100 square feet. By the late '90s, it had more than
2,000 square feet — even as families shrank.
Yet the smaller houses — whether in town or nearby suburbs —
were the picket-fenced paradise that our World War II soldiers dreamed of.
They tend to be very well built, and their kitchens, though small by
McMansion standards, would rival the cooking areas of many restaurants in
Paris.
In the '50s, children routinely shared bedrooms with their
siblings, even in the suburbs. Families of five would make do with one full
bath. Some of the big new houses seem like condo buildings, with each family
member having a private bedroom, bath, television and sometimes a little
fridge.
Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing
Studies at Harvard University, says that immigrant urban families continue
to see the American Dream in smaller old houses. "Our research shows that
new arrivals to the United States still have that image," Retsinas said.
"And they are likely to find that single-family home in the inner-ring
suburbs."
Of course, there are other reasons middle-class people leave the
city once they have children. Schools are an issue. Here, race may play a
part, and so does class. Black and Hispanic middle-class families are also
moving away from the urban poor.
But many good and improving urban public schools still have
trouble attracting middle-class families. And many parents who send their
kids to private schools still feel obligated to move the clan far from the
city.
You'd think the convenience factor of urban living would be a
real magnet for harried two-income families. If Mom and Dad work downtown,
they can get to their jobs in minutes. They can spend more time at home —
and less time chauffeuring children, who can walk many places.
You hear parents talk about the dangers of raising children in
the city. The truth is, the most dangerous place for a teenager is behind
the wheel of a car. Exurban teens drive all the time — often on hazardous
semi-rural roads. The big irony is that many of these kids drive long
distances to hang out in the hip urban neighborhoods that their parents have
"saved" them from. Friends who live in town say that their houses fill on
weekends with their children's exurban friends, who want to be near the
excitement.
Clearly, many factors go into a family's decision to live in one
place or another. But middle-class parents should know that they do have
choices, and one may be their old urban playground. If they can get past the
idea that they must have a four-car garage, they may very well be able to
afford a house in town — where, in all probability, they won't need four
cars, anyway.
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© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
