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 movi

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.