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October 06, 2006
Urban Families
I'm getting a bit tired of reading about the flight of middle-class families away from cities. I grew up in cities and believe that contrary to what suburban propagandizers would have you believe, they are great places to be a kid. The problem is what kind of public spaces, transportation and other amenities you provide for children, teens and their parents.
The most obvious hurdles are good schools and affordable housing, but I've opined on these before and think the city can't tackle those issues alone. The State and Federal Government need to be part of the solution. I'm interested in what cities can implement on their own today. The San Francisco universal preschool initiative is perhaps an exception, but I hope something like Prop 82 will pass statewide someday so the burden to do the right thing on education doesn't always fall on city government.
On the other hand, there are many other policies that cities should be thinking about through the lens of retaining kids and families. Family-friendly doesn't have to mean white-picket fences and parking lots. City governments already manage and work on many projects that directly benefit urban families, such as pedestrian and bicycle ways, public transit, parks and recreational activities.
Parks and public spaces are absolutely critical, both as venues for recreation and play, and as shared cultural spaces. A city is defined by the mingling of people and ideas, and public spaces is where that mingling takes place. Making those spaces available, safe and comfortable should be paramount.
Good transportation is also essential. I moved from an urban environment to a suburb in my teens, and it was a real shock to find myself so dependent on cars -and thus on adults- to go and do anything. I applaud cities that focus not only on public transit, but on the wider concept of mobility in the urban environment. Reclaiming the streets from cars for bikes and pedestrians, creating wider and more pleasant sidewalks: All of these factors contribute to an urban landscape that is easier and more inviting to families and kids.
Cities also host museums, libraries, cinemas and other cultural institutions that should all be made more available to families and children. Kids in cities have a great deal more available to them than their suburban counterpart. Perhaps cities need to invest in the kind of PR effort that suburbs have benefited from over the last 50 years to better convince people that they are a great place for kids and families.
Posted by jessehudson at October 6, 2006 09:44 AM
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Comments
Damn straight.
Posted by: Steve Boland at October 6, 2006 10:20 AM
I grew up in the city and I have to agree with you. I am also raising a family with my wife in the city. Its a great place that offers alot of culture and life that I would never want my kids to miss out on. You are absolutley right that we need to keep thinking about making cities more livable for families
Posted by: Levi at October 6, 2006 02:24 PM
Amen, Jesse. I grew up in the suburbs and know firsthand the problems of not being able to go anywhere.
For some reason my book recommendations failed to post earlier, but this post reminds me of two: Crabgrass Nation, which stunningly lays out how white flight happened; and of course I go back to Jane Jacobs' Death and Life. While public space is one my my number one interests, I think Jacobs hit the nail on the head when she said we shouldn't idolize parks and "open space" as a magic cure-all. I've seen so many unused, too big, unfocused parks that aren't fun, or safe, for anyone. You've got to have a lot of conditions in place to make a plaza or park work. Just a caveat there, great post.
Posted by: Tim Halbur at October 8, 2006 08:55 AM
Thanks everyone- Interestingly, the rain has now stopped and Oakland seems full of kids and strollers. That's some funny timing.
Tim: I've been struggling with Spam comments, and my spam filter is set pretty high. I apologize if one of your comments was lost. You've been set as a "trusted" commenter, and shouldn't have any more trouble.
Thanks also for the reading tips. Jacobs is one of my favorites, naturally, and I'll have to check out Crabgrass Nation. I'm really enjoying the history part of Suburban Nation, so it should be fun.
Posted by: jessehudson at October 8, 2006 09:11 AM
I agree with much of what you have to say here
As someone who grew up in the burbs, after my family had lived in SF for 4 generations, I can say that SF public schools and crime were a big factors but the perception that you speak of was also. My family moved because everyone else of our class was doing it too. In some ways it was self perpetuating as more middle class people moved
I also want to point out that all suburbs are not equal. The part of San Mateo that I lived in really was walkable. I knew the butcher, there was central park, I rode the bus, rode my bike. Sadly well designed suburbs are a thing of the past. Thankfully for parts of the East Bay, Marin and the Peninsula they couldn't totally screw it up with malls and shopping centers because they still have their downtowns.
Though I personally love to live cities now I think their counterpart is the well designed suburb that is culturally linked. Like peas and carrots
Posted by: Zig at October 9, 2006 09:37 PM
Zig: I can attest to that. Palo Alto is low density, but was designed in a cetralized grid in at least the the old part of the city. This makes for a bike friendly design. Everything in the old part of the city is wthin a 10 minute bike ride; Train, Shopping, Library, Stanford, etc. Even in the more 50's suburban South Palo Alto is bike friendly, because of actavists such as Ellen Fletcher, who helped establish the famous bike boulevard and Wilkie Bike Bridge.
However, in the past 10-15 years, the demografic of Palo Alto has be changing from the Community/Family Oriented intelectual Bouigewase (How do you Spell it?), which is aging, into Young Yuppie Families; which I think are coming from Stanford, Berkely or SF.
This has giving a change in Palo Alto. The spike in housing prices, the building of big new mansions, more Starbucks, more big Luxurey SUV's, more crowded rich suburban schools (public), and at its worse, less people, both children and adults, walking and biking. But more a little later.
Posted by: Nick at October 10, 2006 10:27 AM
I'm hopeful that cities can be family-friendly. I grew up in the suburban world. Post-college, however, I've lived in the inner-ring of a mid-size city (Cleveland). Cleveland itself is certainly not family-friendly, but then against it's really not anyone-friendly for that matter. What kinds of city configurations work best for families? That is, at a city-level of population density (New York, for instance) what does it take to keep it family friendly? How can you ensure that kids have space & time & safety to play?
Thanks for your thoughts,
--Steve (http://grossreport.blogspot.com)
Posted by: Stephen Gross at November 1, 2006 11:13 AM
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