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Everybody seems to think that sparse suburbs with large yards are ideal for children, but it seems to me that a nearby park filled with other children is far mo

Everybody seems to think that sparse suburbs with large yards are ideal for children, but it seems to me that a nearby park filled with other children is far more appealing to a child than an empty back yard. Suburbs in the 50's used to be filled with children all about the same age, but a modern suburb is filled with a very wide spread of ages. The number of children on each block the same age as your children is likely to be very low. OTOH, apartment buildings filled with immigrants and poorer people seem to have a much higher density of children than suburban blocks.

rayiner 1y ago
The percentage of the population under 18 has dropped from 35% in 1970 to 22% today. Outside heavily immigrant communities, it’s probably even lower (e.g. 19% in Vermont). The suburbs are materially emptier of children than they were when they were built. Yes, the immigrant communities tend to have lots of kids, but nobody outside those communities wants to move into them. Heck, the people in those communities want to move out. My Bangladeshi immigrant family all noped out of Queens (where there’s a large Bangladeshi enclave with recent immigrants) to Long Island the minute they could afford it.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  About half of my children's friends are the children of immigrants. There are pros and cons, but in my opinion it seems to balance. They aren't poor immigrant families, though. That might make a substantial difference.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    The apartment buildings full of immigrant families with kids are almost exclusively low-SES immigrants. Higher SES immigrants don’t move to those places (and have extremely low birth rates). You have to remember that high SES immigrants are an extremely small self selected and culturally distinct slice of their home population. Culturally distinct in ways that are hard for Americans to even understand because they don’t have a rigid class system where higher status people culturally diverge from lower status people to the degree, they do in other societies. One major difference is the pre-existing exposure to Western culture. Extensive exposure to western colonial governments, western non-profits, and western businesses is common among the class of people who emigrate as high-SES immigrants. My family was quite Anglicized even back in Bangladesh. My grandfather’s house was a former British property (my mom comments half a century later about how solidly the British built the tennis courts). At the time I was born my parents weren’t planning on leaving Bangladesh, but my dad adopted the western practice of having a family name (instead of two given names as is our system). My first name is misspelled German, and I never had the nickname Bangladeshis universally use instead of their legal name. I went to a pre-school for British expats (“Catherine’s Playgroup”). After we immigrated, I grew up in a 90% white and asian town in the U.S., spoke English at home, have never set foot in a mosque, etc. My dad was very deliberate in forcing us to assimilate, at least in outward appearances. That’s my particular story, but if you press your high-SES immigrant friends you’ll likely learn about the ways in which they’re very distinct from others in their country—and were long before coming here. My aunt and uncle, by contrast, live in a Canadian publicly subsidized high-rise that’s entirely low-SES immigrants. Those Bangladeshis are completely different. They’re very religious, socialize primarily within their community, practice arranged marriage and primarily marry within their community, etc. And they were very different from us even when we were all in Bangladesh!

rayiner 1y ago

The percentage of the population under 18 has dropped from 35% in 1970 to 22% today. Outside heavily immigrant communities, it’s probably even lower (e.g. 19% in Vermont). The suburbs are materially emptier of children than they were when they were built. Yes, the immigrant communities tend to have lots of kids, but nobody outside those communities wants to move into them. Heck, the people in those communities want to move out. My Bangladeshi immigrant family all noped out of Queens (where there’s a large Bangladeshi enclave with recent immigrants) to Long Island the minute they could afford it.

bryanlarsen 1y ago
About half of my children's friends are the children of immigrants. There are pros and cons, but in my opinion it seems to balance. They aren't poor immigrant families, though. That might make a substantial difference.
- rayiner 1y ago
  The apartment buildings full of immigrant families with kids are almost exclusively low-SES immigrants. Higher SES immigrants don’t move to those places (and have extremely low birth rates). You have to remember that high SES immigrants are an extremely small self selected and culturally distinct slice of their home population. Culturally distinct in ways that are hard for Americans to even understand because they don’t have a rigid class system where higher status people culturally diverge from lower status people to the degree, they do in other societies. One major difference is the pre-existing exposure to Western culture. Extensive exposure to western colonial governments, western non-profits, and western businesses is common among the class of people who emigrate as high-SES immigrants. My family was quite Anglicized even back in Bangladesh. My grandfather’s house was a former British property (my mom comments half a century later about how solidly the British built the tennis courts). At the time I was born my parents weren’t planning on leaving Bangladesh, but my dad adopted the western practice of having a family name (instead of two given names as is our system). My first name is misspelled German, and I never had the nickname Bangladeshis universally use instead of their legal name. I went to a pre-school for British expats (“Catherine’s Playgroup”). After we immigrated, I grew up in a 90% white and asian town in the U.S., spoke English at home, have never set foot in a mosque, etc. My dad was very deliberate in forcing us to assimilate, at least in outward appearances. That’s my particular story, but if you press your high-SES immigrant friends you’ll likely learn about the ways in which they’re very distinct from others in their country—and were long before coming here. My aunt and uncle, by contrast, live in a Canadian publicly subsidized high-rise that’s entirely low-SES immigrants. Those Bangladeshis are completely different. They’re very religious, socialize primarily within their community, practice arranged marriage and primarily marry within their community, etc. And they were very different from us even when we were all in Bangladesh!