7 ms·

I can't speak for SF or Seattle, but I suspect a big reason for lack of families with children in many large American cities is that, for the most part, public

I can't speak for SF or Seattle, but I suspect a big reason for lack of families with children in many large American cities is that, for the most part, public schools are unacceptable for any family that cares about education. DC, Philly, Baltimore, Cleveland... all the same story. Even in gentrifying and resurgent neighborhoods, parents with the means to do so leave as soon as their kids get to school age or enroll them in extremely expensive private schools. Some might try charter schools or selective magnet schools, but the local neighborhood school in your typical big city is typically a hard "no go".

scarmig 7y ago
SF has a lottery system. With the wrong stroke of luck, your child can be damned to hours of commuting across the city every day, just to go to a crappy school, when a "good" one might be across the street. That's an extreme example, and in the worst case scenario there are plenty of good private schools to send your children. But choosing to live in SF comes with such a set of pros and cons that many parents of school-age children who have a choice choose to live outside of it.
- ska 7y ago
  Is a lottery system really worse overall than just letting people buy their way into desired school district? That model obviously hasn't been working well either.
  - wil421 7y ago
    You can have proper zoning and not have to make it buy in only. Before I moved to the suburbs the city I lived in created “Workforce” zoning to combat gentrification.[1] What’s really hard to stop are the doctors and lawyers who just send their kids to private schools and vote against everything. [1] https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/brookhaven-zoning-overhaul-includes-affordable-housing-incentives/DIEN2Y7TxS40UXACqaHMxL/ https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/brookhaven-zon...
  - scarmig 7y ago
    Depends on your goals and metrics. I'd say yes, it is worse. An interesting read: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-s...
    - ska 7y ago
      Thanks, that was a genuine question.
- badfrog 7y ago
  How long has the lottery existed? Hopefully in a reasonable amount of time, it will cause the differences between good and bad public schools to disappear?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    This is only the case if the schools are bad because of the students going to them.
    - badfrog 7y ago
      > This is only the case if the schools are bad because of the students going to them. Presumably the good schools got good because they're in rich neighborhoods where the parents pour time and money into the schools. If their kids are going to a wider variety of schools now, the rich parents will have incentive to make all the schools good.
      - scarmig 7y ago
        What instead happens is rich parents either move out of San Francisco to the burbs, or send their kids to private school. And so San Francisco ends up both with the lowest population of children of any major city and one of the highest private school enrollment rates in the country (~20%).
      - golemiprague 7y ago
        You don't need time and money to make a good school, what you need is pupils that are encouraged to study by their parents and that are not absolutely poor. We all know which group of people has a study culture and which doesn't and responsible parents make sure their kids are raised among those people who want to study. Simple as that, all the rest is a smoke screen for this basic fact of life.
cafard 7y ago
From what I see, Washington parents who care can be good at managing the charter/magnet school thing. On my block are two kids at each of two charter schools, one at a well-thought-of public middle school, one at a private school, and several I couldn't tell you about. Yes, I have seen people move across the park (to the more prosperous part of town) when the kid left Aidan Montessori or they got tired of the admissions stuff. But I suspect I know three families that stuck it out here for ever two that left.
kec 7y ago
It doesn’t have to be that way, Boston public schools for instance are excellent.
- magashna 7y ago
  And we still think it's not good enough!
magashna 7y ago
I'd bet it's also more expensive, less safe, less space, basically none of the things that you think of when you imagine the typical American nuclear family
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Exactly this. You could not even pay me to raise my two kids in the city. What the city offers to someone in their 20s does nothing for those in their 30s spending most of their time working or child rearing (and I work from home). I require space, comfort, and convenience for family, not eatery and nightlife variety. Proximity to interstates and international airports is also desirable though for work and vacation travel.
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    As much as I hate on the old joint family system it definitely took care of this problem
  - Mvhsz 7y ago
    > convenience for family As a late-20s person living in the city, this is a thing I've been pondering. I grew up in typical suburban sprawl living "close" to school, soccer practice and friend's houses... but "close" still meant entirely dependent on my parents for rides to each place (less the 5-10 children my age within a 1-mile walk). It was a huge time sink for the family, and having to be driven everywhere felt isolating as a child (i.e. can't hang out because mom is too busy to drive me). Not every urban neighborhood is inherently walkable, but many cities have inner ring suburbs (usually within city limits) where all of those amenities are at most a 20 minute walk away. Would this type of neighborhood be livable with your requirements?
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Maybe. Suburbs streets have so little traffic you can let a 4 year old play games in them. As you get closer and closer in there is more traffic. If I lived on any of the roads near downtown in my tiny city I'd be concerned about my kid running out the door and into the street. While I worry about that anywhere, the odds are in my favor where I live now because there are so few cars, while in the city there are cars all the time.
tastythrowaway 7y ago
Absolutely true. Safety, good schools. Most major cities compromise on both if you're middle class or below. In our case we're already planning our move away in time for public school and it's a few years out yet.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
matchbok 7y ago
That may have been true 10 years ago. In DC, the nicer neighborhoods have some of the best (top 400) elementary schools in the country. This is driven primarily by wealthy younger couples choosing to stay in the city rather than leave for the boring burbs.
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  That's certainly possible. People have been trying to figure out what threshold of gentrification is required to keep families with means from leaving. I expect it's very high in DC and hard to replicate elsewhere. That said DC is a small place surrounded by some significantly urbanized parts of Maryland and Virginia (eg Silver Spring, Alexandria, and many of the communities with metro stops).
  - matchbok 7y ago
    Very true. We'll see how things evolve over the next few years!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

scarmig 7y ago

SF has a lottery system. With the wrong stroke of luck, your child can be damned to hours of commuting across the city every day, just to go to a crappy school, when a "good" one might be across the street. That's an extreme example, and in the worst case scenario there are plenty of good private schools to send your children. But choosing to live in SF comes with such a set of pros and cons that many parents of school-age children who have a choice choose to live outside of it.

ska 7y ago
Is a lottery system really worse overall than just letting people buy their way into desired school district? That model obviously hasn't been working well either.
- wil421 7y ago
  You can have proper zoning and not have to make it buy in only. Before I moved to the suburbs the city I lived in created “Workforce” zoning to combat gentrification.[1] What’s really hard to stop are the doctors and lawyers who just send their kids to private schools and vote against everything. [1] https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/brookhaven-zoning-overhaul-includes-affordable-housing-incentives/DIEN2Y7TxS40UXACqaHMxL/ https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/brookhaven-zon...
- scarmig 7y ago
  Depends on your goals and metrics. I'd say yes, it is worse. An interesting read: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-s...
  - ska 7y ago
    Thanks, that was a genuine question.
badfrog 7y ago
How long has the lottery existed? Hopefully in a reasonable amount of time, it will cause the differences between good and bad public schools to disappear?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  This is only the case if the schools are bad because of the students going to them.
  - badfrog 7y ago
    > This is only the case if the schools are bad because of the students going to them. Presumably the good schools got good because they're in rich neighborhoods where the parents pour time and money into the schools. If their kids are going to a wider variety of schools now, the rich parents will have incentive to make all the schools good.
    - scarmig 7y ago
      What instead happens is rich parents either move out of San Francisco to the burbs, or send their kids to private school. And so San Francisco ends up both with the lowest population of children of any major city and one of the highest private school enrollment rates in the country (~20%).
    - golemiprague 7y ago
      You don't need time and money to make a good school, what you need is pupils that are encouraged to study by their parents and that are not absolutely poor. We all know which group of people has a study culture and which doesn't and responsible parents make sure their kids are raised among those people who want to study. Simple as that, all the rest is a smoke screen for this basic fact of life.

cafard 7y ago

From what I see, Washington parents who care can be good at managing the charter/magnet school thing. On my block are two kids at each of two charter schools, one at a well-thought-of public middle school, one at a private school, and several I couldn't tell you about. Yes, I have seen people move across the park (to the more prosperous part of town) when the kid left Aidan Montessori or they got tired of the admissions stuff. But I suspect I know three families that stuck it out here for ever two that left.

kec 7y ago

It doesn’t have to be that way, Boston public schools for instance are excellent.

magashna 7y ago
And we still think it's not good enough!

magashna 7y ago

I'd bet it's also more expensive, less safe, less space, basically none of the things that you think of when you imagine the typical American nuclear family

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Exactly this. You could not even pay me to raise my two kids in the city. What the city offers to someone in their 20s does nothing for those in their 30s spending most of their time working or child rearing (and I work from home). I require space, comfort, and convenience for family, not eatery and nightlife variety. Proximity to interstates and international airports is also desirable though for work and vacation travel.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  As much as I hate on the old joint family system it definitely took care of this problem
- Mvhsz 7y ago
  > convenience for family As a late-20s person living in the city, this is a thing I've been pondering. I grew up in typical suburban sprawl living "close" to school, soccer practice and friend's houses... but "close" still meant entirely dependent on my parents for rides to each place (less the 5-10 children my age within a 1-mile walk). It was a huge time sink for the family, and having to be driven everywhere felt isolating as a child (i.e. can't hang out because mom is too busy to drive me). Not every urban neighborhood is inherently walkable, but many cities have inner ring suburbs (usually within city limits) where all of those amenities are at most a 20 minute walk away. Would this type of neighborhood be livable with your requirements?
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Maybe. Suburbs streets have so little traffic you can let a 4 year old play games in them. As you get closer and closer in there is more traffic. If I lived on any of the roads near downtown in my tiny city I'd be concerned about my kid running out the door and into the street. While I worry about that anywhere, the odds are in my favor where I live now because there are so few cars, while in the city there are cars all the time.

tastythrowaway 7y ago

Absolutely true. Safety, good schools. Most major cities compromise on both if you're middle class or below. In our case we're already planning our move away in time for public school and it's a few years out yet.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

matchbok 7y ago

That may have been true 10 years ago. In DC, the nicer neighborhoods have some of the best (top 400) elementary schools in the country. This is driven primarily by wealthy younger couples choosing to stay in the city rather than leave for the boring burbs.

crispyambulance 7y ago
That's certainly possible. People have been trying to figure out what threshold of gentrification is required to keep families with means from leaving. I expect it's very high in DC and hard to replicate elsewhere. That said DC is a small place surrounded by some significantly urbanized parts of Maryland and Virginia (eg Silver Spring, Alexandria, and many of the communities with metro stops).
- matchbok 7y ago
  Very true. We'll see how things evolve over the next few years!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]