3 ms·

Makes sense but do you have a link? Never heard this before.

Animats 2y ago
> urban density has always been correlated with lower fertility It's a classic experiment with mice.[1] But downtowns are nowhere near the density for that to appear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
- dmix 2y ago
  There is some truth to the idea though. Imagine living in a big city and you want to have kids, having kids means you need extra living space/hospitals/schooling/cars etc. You can't just easily go buy a townhouse for cheap. Neighborhood crime also becomes a concern. So it means disrupting your life, socially, culturally, and work wise and moving to the suburbs or a small town. I doubt this is just dense urbanization<>low rates, it's mostly just modern urbanization where everyone wants to live in the city but governments/NIMBYs refuse to build any housing parents or retail/services businesses supporting children can afford. So costs are artificially exorbitant. Which brings down the birth rates, so immigration is increased who also want to live in cities, and need housing and want kids...etc. So there is both artificial downward pressures on birth rates in (modern) cities and naturally via the general chaos of cities.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > You can't just easily go buy a townhouse for cheap. But this is precisely the issue. The issue is not cities, it's housing scarcity. Housing scarcity just tends to be correlated with cities because demand there is typically high and then land owners capture the local government to constrain supply. The problem isn't housing in cities, it's the lack of housing in and around cities. What would happen if there was enough for it to be cheap?
    - katbyte 2y ago
      Well for one wages would go further people would have more money and CoL would drop.
  - katbyte 2y ago
    It’s clearly not density because if you go into some of the most dense (poor) cities in the world fertility rates are not so low. It’s a western thing likely because we have priced out families and couples can no longer afford to have kids/the large apartments needed. Need to build more two and three bedroom apartments you can actually afford and raise a family in
ipaddr 2y ago
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Increasing+Population+Densities+Predict+Decreasing+Fertility+Rates+Over+Time&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Incr... Part of it may be the cost, housing available, society expectations (having 3 kids is at the top of expectations). Career, starting later and perhaps too much (or too little) choice in the dating pool.

> urban density has always been correlated with lower fertility It's a classic experiment with mice.[1] But downtowns are nowhere near the density for that to appear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

dmix 2y ago
There is some truth to the idea though. Imagine living in a big city and you want to have kids, having kids means you need extra living space/hospitals/schooling/cars etc. You can't just easily go buy a townhouse for cheap. Neighborhood crime also becomes a concern. So it means disrupting your life, socially, culturally, and work wise and moving to the suburbs or a small town. I doubt this is just dense urbanization<>low rates, it's mostly just modern urbanization where everyone wants to live in the city but governments/NIMBYs refuse to build any housing parents or retail/services businesses supporting children can afford. So costs are artificially exorbitant. Which brings down the birth rates, so immigration is increased who also want to live in cities, and need housing and want kids...etc. So there is both artificial downward pressures on birth rates in (modern) cities and naturally via the general chaos of cities.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > You can't just easily go buy a townhouse for cheap. But this is precisely the issue. The issue is not cities, it's housing scarcity. Housing scarcity just tends to be correlated with cities because demand there is typically high and then land owners capture the local government to constrain supply. The problem isn't housing in cities, it's the lack of housing in and around cities. What would happen if there was enough for it to be cheap?
  - katbyte 2y ago
    Well for one wages would go further people would have more money and CoL would drop.
- katbyte 2y ago
  It’s clearly not density because if you go into some of the most dense (poor) cities in the world fertility rates are not so low. It’s a western thing likely because we have priced out families and couples can no longer afford to have kids/the large apartments needed. Need to build more two and three bedroom apartments you can actually afford and raise a family in

ipaddr 2y ago

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Increasing+Population+Densities+Predict+Decreasing+Fertility+Rates+Over+Time&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Incr... Part of it may be the cost, housing available, society expectations (having 3 kids is at the top of expectations). Career, starting later and perhaps too much (or too little) choice in the dating pool.