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Most of my Generation–X friends surprisingly stayed in their respective cities on having kids (almost all have had kids in their late 30s or early 40s). Combin

by epc 12y ago

Most of my Generation–X friends surprisingly stayed in their respective cities on having kids (almost all have had kids in their late 30s or early 40s). Combination of improved schools in NYC, improved living conditions, desire to not spend hours commuting, or to live in a walkable neighborhood. Even know a couple who moved to lower Manhattan from suburban Chicago (Naperville) entirely over walkability + livability vs. long commute times. One issue I rarely see addressed in these articles is how difficult we've made it to get a driver's license in the US. I started driving when I was 14 (rural midwest roads) and got a license within a month of turning 16. In contrast my cousins (early millenials or very late GenX) couldn't even get permits until they were 15 1/2 and had to drive for nearly 2 years under adult supervision before they could get a license. That has to have some sort of negative impact on the interest or desire to drive.

rpcope1 12y ago
It's funny that you bring up licensing being hard to get; sometimes I wonder if we're not actually (still) too lenient in who we give drivers licenses to. Maybe it's just that I'm past the point where my pre-frontal cortex is fully developed, but I can't imagine that continuing to tighten the training and requirements needed to get a license is a bad thing (and this is coming from someone who really enjoys his cars).
- CalRobert 12y ago
  I tend to agree. It was interesting comparing the experience of getting a license in California in 2001: very few restrictions if you were 18, which I was, a laughably easy practical test with no training required, no waiting period after getting a permit - you could take the test the same day if there was a slot available; to getting one in Ireland in 2014 (12 hours of instruction required regardless of your age, must have had a permit (or foreign license) for at least 6 months, and a test with a 40% pass rate where you have to bring a standard transmission vehicle if you want to drive stick legally). Even after 13 years of driving, those 12 hours of training were actually pretty helpful. Not just for cleaning up bad habits, but for techniques I'd never properly learned in CA, like stick shift starts up steep hills with a stiff clutch. My city driving has improved as well.
- epc 12y ago
  I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing (that I survived my teen driving years is entirely out of luck) but when we've built up a culture (suburbia) entirely dependent on being able to drive from point to point, we can't be surprised that making it more difficult to drive turns teens and 20 somethings off from staying in that culture. If you can't drive or your driving is restricted as a matter of law, would you rather be stuck in suburbia or in a more urban area where mass–transit or cycling is possible?
cauterized 12y ago
I'm seeing the same among my Gen X and Millennial friends. Unlike most of our parents, we're staying in the city to raise kids despite having the option of moving to the burbs. The sidewalks in my neighborhood are choked with strollers on weekends. And apparently little league and soccer leagues are turning away a large portion of families who want to register and still having trouble finding enough fields for all their teams to play. This is happening to the degree that preschool admissions are now hypercompetitive because so many upper middle class parents want to give their kids the best possible chance to get into a magnet or private elementary school so they can go to a good high school and get into an Ivy League college. I wonder if part of the reason this is happening is that kids in the suburbs are now allowed to roam and play unsupervised so much less than our generation was that it doesn't seem to make a difference whether they're in the city or the suburbs since they're going to be indoors most of the time anyway. If you're going to supervise all their outdoor time anyway, might as well just take them to the park. Besides, you can argue that for younger teens the city is much better than the suburbs. Instead of those too young to drive themselves hanging around in bunches and making trouble out of sheer boredom, those groups walk around the (actually interesting) neighborhood, go to the park, take themselves to a movie or poke around in their favorite stores. They can get to their friends' houses without having to pester their parents for a lift, and they don't put themselves at risk getting in a car with a 16-y/o driver and multiple rowdy passengers.
- panglott 12y ago
  Yep, people always talked about how the small town was "a great place for raising kids", except that is was so unimaginably boring that teenagers really had nothing much to do but a bunch of drugs and sex. The outer suburbs are pretty much the same: the supposed bucolic safety of the cul-de-sac becomes a deathtrap if you move onto the arterial roads. I've seen plenty of fourteen-year-olds riding dirt bikes without lights on high-speed roads feeding onto the interstate, because how else are they supposed to get anywhere interesting?

by epc 12y ago

rpcope1 12y ago

It's funny that you bring up licensing being hard to get; sometimes I wonder if we're not actually (still) too lenient in who we give drivers licenses to. Maybe it's just that I'm past the point where my pre-frontal cortex is fully developed, but I can't imagine that continuing to tighten the training and requirements needed to get a license is a bad thing (and this is coming from someone who really enjoys his cars).

CalRobert 12y ago
I tend to agree. It was interesting comparing the experience of getting a license in California in 2001: very few restrictions if you were 18, which I was, a laughably easy practical test with no training required, no waiting period after getting a permit - you could take the test the same day if there was a slot available; to getting one in Ireland in 2014 (12 hours of instruction required regardless of your age, must have had a permit (or foreign license) for at least 6 months, and a test with a 40% pass rate where you have to bring a standard transmission vehicle if you want to drive stick legally). Even after 13 years of driving, those 12 hours of training were actually pretty helpful. Not just for cleaning up bad habits, but for techniques I'd never properly learned in CA, like stick shift starts up steep hills with a stiff clutch. My city driving has improved as well.
epc 12y ago
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing (that I survived my teen driving years is entirely out of luck) but when we've built up a culture (suburbia) entirely dependent on being able to drive from point to point, we can't be surprised that making it more difficult to drive turns teens and 20 somethings off from staying in that culture. If you can't drive or your driving is restricted as a matter of law, would you rather be stuck in suburbia or in a more urban area where mass–transit or cycling is possible?

cauterized 12y ago

I'm seeing the same among my Gen X and Millennial friends. Unlike most of our parents, we're staying in the city to raise kids despite having the option of moving to the burbs. The sidewalks in my neighborhood are choked with strollers on weekends. And apparently little league and soccer leagues are turning away a large portion of families who want to register and still having trouble finding enough fields for all their teams to play. This is happening to the degree that preschool admissions are now hypercompetitive because so many upper middle class parents want to give their kids the best possible chance to get into a magnet or private elementary school so they can go to a good high school and get into an Ivy League college. I wonder if part of the reason this is happening is that kids in the suburbs are now allowed to roam and play unsupervised so much less than our generation was that it doesn't seem to make a difference whether they're in the city or the suburbs since they're going to be indoors most of the time anyway. If you're going to supervise all their outdoor time anyway, might as well just take them to the park. Besides, you can argue that for younger teens the city is much better than the suburbs. Instead of those too young to drive themselves hanging around in bunches and making trouble out of sheer boredom, those groups walk around the (actually interesting) neighborhood, go to the park, take themselves to a movie or poke around in their favorite stores. They can get to their friends' houses without having to pester their parents for a lift, and they don't put themselves at risk getting in a car with a 16-y/o driver and multiple rowdy passengers.

panglott 12y ago
Yep, people always talked about how the small town was "a great place for raising kids", except that is was so unimaginably boring that teenagers really had nothing much to do but a bunch of drugs and sex. The outer suburbs are pretty much the same: the supposed bucolic safety of the cul-de-sac becomes a deathtrap if you move onto the arterial roads. I've seen plenty of fourteen-year-olds riding dirt bikes without lights on high-speed roads feeding onto the interstate, because how else are they supposed to get anywhere interesting?