Child care is $20,000 to $30,000 per year in NYC and SF and many cities, the cost of the child's health care insurance is around $300-400 for a low deductible p

Child care is $20,000 to $30,000 per year in NYC and SF and many cities, the cost of the child's health care insurance is around $300-400 for a low deductible plan, and the extra rent, is around $1,200 for an additional bedroom, so the fixed costs are at least $40,000 per year, or one partner needs to drop out of the workforce which has its own costs. The birth itself is equivalent to the cost of only a few months of the child's life. You have to really want children to pull it off in American cities today. I think the only viable option here if we want children (and their parents) in cities -- which would require buy-in from the older generation -- is to raise property / land taxes and use this to afford better schools and pre-K (so you're only on the hook for the first few years of the child's life), and to build more housing of course. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=United+States&city1=New+York%2C+NY&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...