3 ms·

>The typical pattern is younger people living in the city and moving to the suburbs as they get older and have kids. How long has this been the typical pattern

>The typical pattern is younger people living in the city and moving to the suburbs as they get older and have kids. How long has this been the typical pattern? Auto-oriented suburbs are an experiment two generations in the making. Before that development, there was a sharper urban-rural divide. I would not be surprised to see the US largely swing back to that arrangement within the next 60 years.

adjkant 7y ago
To expand on this anecdotally, I know of millennials who moved to the suburbs anticipating that suburban shift and have found themselves sorely mistaken about most of their friends patterns. I'd love to see stats on urban->suburban movement by age over the past 20-30 years.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Data suggests that millennials have been putting off moving to the suburbs, consistent with their putting off home buying and having kids, but that trend has already peaked as we get further away from the recession: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millennials-moving-to-suburbs-will-change-economic-development https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millen.... The lack of good schools and affordable houses in cities seems to be the deal killer. In my own experience, I don’t know any middle class people trying to raise kids in the city. Out of my friends’ circle, the folks trying to stick through the city thing are all high income ($200k+ household). My wife and I stuck it out downtown for a while—until our daughter was five. But the costs add up shockingly fast. For example, for the first four years, you can’t send your kids to public school even if you want to. A daycare near my office in DC is $2,400 per month for infants. Near my house in the Annapolis suburbs, it’s $1,500 at the high end. Most of the good public schools are in Northwest, where $900,000 is table stakes for a house (and where you need a car anyway because there is no metro).
  - adjkant 7y ago
    Yeah, you need money to raise a kid in a city, that's for sure - no argument there. That said, I'd say millennial are having fewer kids (feel comfortable on that claim without researching stats but of course they are welcome) so that makes cities more attractive to the current 25-40 age range than their predecessors.

adjkant 7y ago

To expand on this anecdotally, I know of millennials who moved to the suburbs anticipating that suburban shift and have found themselves sorely mistaken about most of their friends patterns. I'd love to see stats on urban->suburban movement by age over the past 20-30 years.

rayiner 7y ago
Data suggests that millennials have been putting off moving to the suburbs, consistent with their putting off home buying and having kids, but that trend has already peaked as we get further away from the recession: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millennials-moving-to-suburbs-will-change-economic-development https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millen.... The lack of good schools and affordable houses in cities seems to be the deal killer. In my own experience, I don’t know any middle class people trying to raise kids in the city. Out of my friends’ circle, the folks trying to stick through the city thing are all high income ($200k+ household). My wife and I stuck it out downtown for a while—until our daughter was five. But the costs add up shockingly fast. For example, for the first four years, you can’t send your kids to public school even if you want to. A daycare near my office in DC is $2,400 per month for infants. Near my house in the Annapolis suburbs, it’s $1,500 at the high end. Most of the good public schools are in Northwest, where $900,000 is table stakes for a house (and where you need a car anyway because there is no metro).
- adjkant 7y ago
  Yeah, you need money to raise a kid in a city, that's for sure - no argument there. That said, I'd say millennial are having fewer kids (feel comfortable on that claim without researching stats but of course they are welcome) so that makes cities more attractive to the current 25-40 age range than their predecessors.