10 ms·

Living with roommates and living in small quarters as well as spending half of your money on housing is okay when you are single and having fun exploring your s

Living with roommates and living in small quarters as well as spending half of your money on housing is okay when you are single and having fun exploring your self and your potential and direction --but once people have children equations change and living in the city becomes less possible --mostly because of the lack of "family-centric" housing stock --whether detached units or multi-bedroom condos and apartment units along with city amenities for kids as well as good school systems. In SF, for example, bad school districts is a very big reason for people to leave for better districts --some parents of means will remain but put their kids in private schools, obviously that does not scale.

msrpotus 10y ago
There's no rule that says that rich cities will continue to have bad schools. To take one counter example, there are plenty of well-off parents in NYC who send their kids to public schools because New York has built a number of public schools that are good (not enough, to be fair, but enough that there are plenty of families here). The same could happen in San Francisco.
- scurvy 10y ago
  One problem is that SF doesn't have a gifted and talented program until near high school (and the junior highs are terrible across the board). Even with more schools, the school board would mismanage them. It's easier just to move than it is to fight an entrenched bureaucracy.
- pizzetta 10y ago
  Of course, but given that in the SF example, at least, the proportion of the pop under 18yoa is very low, so that more or less will result in fewer resources dedicated to education. If the proportion under 18yoa of people were increasing we'd see an investment for the future --but given the characteristics of housing stock in SF, we're not likely to see the proportion of under 18yoa increase significantly in the near future.
  - scurvy 10y ago
    Or as Peter Thiel put it, "San Francisco is structurally hostile to families."
- freyir 10y ago
  > The same could happen in San Francisco. It could, but who is going to push for this change? SF has an extremely low proportion of families (fewest children of any major city). Are single millennials and DINKs going to make this a priority?
scurvy 10y ago
When you say bad school districts in SF, you mean the one district, right? SF school assignment is a (failed social experiment) lottery system where your kids can be assigned anywhere in the city, regardless of the fact that you live a block from a school. Most parents leave SF because they don't want their kids being part of a failed social experiment. The SF USD has been playing social scientist since the 1970s with disastrous results. Want to make it better? Kick the DINKs off the school board and make having an enrolled child a requirement for being on the board.
- pizzetta 10y ago
  Yes, the lottery system which can land your kid who lives one block away from their preferred school but gets assigned to a school on the other side of town and 45 mins away in traffic is one big red flashing migraine for many parents.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Yet another good reason to not bother having kids. Honestly, if I found a partner who wanted kids, I'd be looking really hard at finding a job in another country because this country (US) is a terrible place to raise a kid.
    - pizzetta 10y ago
      California is notorious for having poorly run schools. For good schools look in Massachusetts. If you look at the BOS metro area they tend towards the top of the school systems nation-wide. It's hard to find poorly run schools in the BOS metro area --occasionally you get a few complaints from people unhappy with blue-collar[1] pupils getting pushed into regional schools in good districts. [1] mostly white but from non-professional families.
      - Arizhel 10y ago
        That may be, but in many states (probably any place urban or suburban), you still have to worry about getting arrested if you let your kid walk to school or play outside by himself.
hx87 10y ago
> mostly because of the lack of "family-centric" housing stock --whether detached units or multi-bedroom condos and apartment units So...what kind of housing stock accommodates people living with roommates? The exact same 2/3/4 bedroom apartments that young single people share are the ones that families need. If the issue is that 4 single people with jobs can outcompete a couple with 3 kids, then the problem is with the total quantity of housing stock, not the mix.
- pizzetta 10y ago
  If you look at the new housing stock coming on-line there is a dearth of "family" housing stock --most units have DINKs in mind. they have bikes in mind, not strollers. Yoga space, not daycare, an open floor plan with no child's room, etc. New families don't have the income to pay what 3/4/five professionals can pool together to afford that 2/3/4 bedroom flat.
- mjevans 10y ago
  The last time I went searching for apartments in the Seattle metro area there were /mostly/ 2 bedroom units. Even the nicer unit I'm currently in is a failure as far as sound-proofing goes. Some market regulation, like with fire codes, would really help with improving quality of life by raising privacy and encouraging larger unit-plan apartments.
  - pilom 10y ago
    Please no. Regulations should exist for safety and dealing with externalities. Regulating sound-proofing is neither of those and would expand government overreach without enough benefit.
    - ericd 10y ago
      The idea there would be that it's one of those things that's hard for consumers to evaluate in the time they have to evaluate it, because a walkthrough doesn't provide a representative sample. For example, you probably won't know how frequently ambulances take the road next to that apartment in the middle of the night. Dealing with information asymmetry is one of the big functions of consumer protections laws, and is one of the useful functions of government.
ones_and_zeros 10y ago
I see a few factors in my friends (mid to late 30s, east coast city) that leads me to believe there won't be a mass exodus to the burbs: - They aren't having children at all - They are having children very late, essentially already settling in the city - They are having fewer children if any - Since all of the jobs are in the city, they are optimizing commute times - The burbs housing stock are all 40+ year old homes that need significant system updates - I don't see the unbridled consumerism the boomers had, less stuff = less requirement of space
- amyjess 10y ago
  > Since all of the jobs are in the city, they are optimizing commute times I find that funny, because in Texas, the jobs are all in the suburbs and are rapidly moving farther out into the suburbs and even the exurbs. I live in the suburbs of Dallas, and of the four jobs I've had, I've commuted further out into the suburbs for three of them. Only one of my jobs was in the city. And the number of jobs in the suburbs are growing: we've had some big-name companies relocate their headquarters from other states to Dallas suburbs like Plano and Frisco, and one big-name company that used to be headquartered in Downtown Dallas just moved their headquarters to Irving, another suburb of Dallas. Also, my current employer is based in an inner-ring suburb (Plano) and there's been talk of how we're probably going to outgrow our office in a couple of years, and from what I've heard we're very likely to relocate to an exurb. > The burbs housing stock are all 40+ year old homes that need significant system updates This doesn't apply to Texas either. Most of the suburbs, and especially the exurbs, were built in the last 30 years or so, and a good amount of them were built in the last 10-20 years (e.g. everything in Prosper and Celina is very new development). Most of what's now suburb and exurb was farmland when I was a kid, and I'm only 32.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Yes, but Texas (outside of Austin) is basically like a totally different country. It bears zero resemblance to NYC, Boston, DC, SanFran, etc.
    - 10y ago
teirce 10y ago
> mostly because of the lack of "family-centric" housing stock An interesting anecdote: I live in Little Rock, AR, which, as I'm sure you're thinking, is just a booming urban metropolis. I don't know what is different about the city here, but every single apartment, townhouse, etc. is very clearly built with a family in mind. There's always a master bedroom and a child bedroom. (It was very frustrating when apartment hunting with a friend since neither of us were ever pleased with the child room.) If I had to speculate, it's likely that the vast majority of people who can afford to live downtown are older. The city has a growing tech scene, but most of its employees are middle aged.

msrpotus 10y ago

There's no rule that says that rich cities will continue to have bad schools. To take one counter example, there are plenty of well-off parents in NYC who send their kids to public schools because New York has built a number of public schools that are good (not enough, to be fair, but enough that there are plenty of families here). The same could happen in San Francisco.

scurvy 10y ago
One problem is that SF doesn't have a gifted and talented program until near high school (and the junior highs are terrible across the board). Even with more schools, the school board would mismanage them. It's easier just to move than it is to fight an entrenched bureaucracy.
pizzetta 10y ago
Of course, but given that in the SF example, at least, the proportion of the pop under 18yoa is very low, so that more or less will result in fewer resources dedicated to education. If the proportion under 18yoa of people were increasing we'd see an investment for the future --but given the characteristics of housing stock in SF, we're not likely to see the proportion of under 18yoa increase significantly in the near future.
- scurvy 10y ago
  Or as Peter Thiel put it, "San Francisco is structurally hostile to families."
freyir 10y ago
> The same could happen in San Francisco. It could, but who is going to push for this change? SF has an extremely low proportion of families (fewest children of any major city). Are single millennials and DINKs going to make this a priority?

scurvy 10y ago

When you say bad school districts in SF, you mean the one district, right? SF school assignment is a (failed social experiment) lottery system where your kids can be assigned anywhere in the city, regardless of the fact that you live a block from a school. Most parents leave SF because they don't want their kids being part of a failed social experiment. The SF USD has been playing social scientist since the 1970s with disastrous results. Want to make it better? Kick the DINKs off the school board and make having an enrolled child a requirement for being on the board.

pizzetta 10y ago
Yes, the lottery system which can land your kid who lives one block away from their preferred school but gets assigned to a school on the other side of town and 45 mins away in traffic is one big red flashing migraine for many parents.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Yet another good reason to not bother having kids. Honestly, if I found a partner who wanted kids, I'd be looking really hard at finding a job in another country because this country (US) is a terrible place to raise a kid.
  - pizzetta 10y ago
    California is notorious for having poorly run schools. For good schools look in Massachusetts. If you look at the BOS metro area they tend towards the top of the school systems nation-wide. It's hard to find poorly run schools in the BOS metro area --occasionally you get a few complaints from people unhappy with blue-collar[1] pupils getting pushed into regional schools in good districts. [1] mostly white but from non-professional families.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      That may be, but in many states (probably any place urban or suburban), you still have to worry about getting arrested if you let your kid walk to school or play outside by himself.

hx87 10y ago

> mostly because of the lack of "family-centric" housing stock --whether detached units or multi-bedroom condos and apartment units So...what kind of housing stock accommodates people living with roommates? The exact same 2/3/4 bedroom apartments that young single people share are the ones that families need. If the issue is that 4 single people with jobs can outcompete a couple with 3 kids, then the problem is with the total quantity of housing stock, not the mix.

pizzetta 10y ago
If you look at the new housing stock coming on-line there is a dearth of "family" housing stock --most units have DINKs in mind. they have bikes in mind, not strollers. Yoga space, not daycare, an open floor plan with no child's room, etc. New families don't have the income to pay what 3/4/five professionals can pool together to afford that 2/3/4 bedroom flat.
mjevans 10y ago
The last time I went searching for apartments in the Seattle metro area there were /mostly/ 2 bedroom units. Even the nicer unit I'm currently in is a failure as far as sound-proofing goes. Some market regulation, like with fire codes, would really help with improving quality of life by raising privacy and encouraging larger unit-plan apartments.
- pilom 10y ago
  Please no. Regulations should exist for safety and dealing with externalities. Regulating sound-proofing is neither of those and would expand government overreach without enough benefit.
  - ericd 10y ago
    The idea there would be that it's one of those things that's hard for consumers to evaluate in the time they have to evaluate it, because a walkthrough doesn't provide a representative sample. For example, you probably won't know how frequently ambulances take the road next to that apartment in the middle of the night. Dealing with information asymmetry is one of the big functions of consumer protections laws, and is one of the useful functions of government.

ones_and_zeros 10y ago

I see a few factors in my friends (mid to late 30s, east coast city) that leads me to believe there won't be a mass exodus to the burbs: - They aren't having children at all - They are having children very late, essentially already settling in the city - They are having fewer children if any - Since all of the jobs are in the city, they are optimizing commute times - The burbs housing stock are all 40+ year old homes that need significant system updates - I don't see the unbridled consumerism the boomers had, less stuff = less requirement of space

amyjess 10y ago
> Since all of the jobs are in the city, they are optimizing commute times I find that funny, because in Texas, the jobs are all in the suburbs and are rapidly moving farther out into the suburbs and even the exurbs. I live in the suburbs of Dallas, and of the four jobs I've had, I've commuted further out into the suburbs for three of them. Only one of my jobs was in the city. And the number of jobs in the suburbs are growing: we've had some big-name companies relocate their headquarters from other states to Dallas suburbs like Plano and Frisco, and one big-name company that used to be headquartered in Downtown Dallas just moved their headquarters to Irving, another suburb of Dallas. Also, my current employer is based in an inner-ring suburb (Plano) and there's been talk of how we're probably going to outgrow our office in a couple of years, and from what I've heard we're very likely to relocate to an exurb. > The burbs housing stock are all 40+ year old homes that need significant system updates This doesn't apply to Texas either. Most of the suburbs, and especially the exurbs, were built in the last 30 years or so, and a good amount of them were built in the last 10-20 years (e.g. everything in Prosper and Celina is very new development). Most of what's now suburb and exurb was farmland when I was a kid, and I'm only 32.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Yes, but Texas (outside of Austin) is basically like a totally different country. It bears zero resemblance to NYC, Boston, DC, SanFran, etc.
  - 10y ago

teirce 10y ago

> mostly because of the lack of "family-centric" housing stock An interesting anecdote: I live in Little Rock, AR, which, as I'm sure you're thinking, is just a booming urban metropolis. I don't know what is different about the city here, but every single apartment, townhouse, etc. is very clearly built with a family in mind. There's always a master bedroom and a child bedroom. (It was very frustrating when apartment hunting with a friend since neither of us were ever pleased with the child room.) If I had to speculate, it's likely that the vast majority of people who can afford to live downtown are older. The city has a growing tech scene, but most of its employees are middle aged.