What You Think: Families in Urban Areas

We've briefly covered the changing demographics of downtown residents in this blog, noting that in many cases the revitalization of central cities is driven by families without kids. (Although the good folks over at CEOs for Cities may disagree with our anecdotal evidence.) There seem to be a number of factors in play that discourage traditional households from locating in our downtowns, but we wanted to hear from you, our readers, to see what you feel are the most important factors leading families to choose suburban life.

A clear majority of our readers voting in the poll (click on the image to the right to see the full-size version of the results) believe that school quality is the greatest barrier to families living in cities. Housing costs and safety concerns were a distant second and third. I don't think these poll results are particularly surprising to anyone, but it is yet another indication that cities that want to attract young families will need to pour more resources into fixing broken school systems. Of course, not everyone is of the belief that increasing families in cities is the key to downtown revitalization, but there are a great many political leaders that believe family mobility patterns are the harbinger economic success or failure. Let us know in the comments whether you think families are crucial to a city's turnaround -- and don't forget to vote in our new poll on barriers to workforce housing.

Comments

[Carol Coletta]

Clearly, the development of central cities is being driven by 25-34 year olds. They are 30 percent more likely than other Americans to live within a three-mile radius of the Central Business District.

But that very fact creates a market opportunity for cities. If cities are able to use their assets to hold onto to these young adults as they age into families with children (and into their most productive earning years), then cities will be much stronger for it.

There are plenty of people figuring out how to live in cities with families today. Yes, they suffer pain points, and yes, they are having to figure out work arounds.

The challenge is to eliminate pain points (and our 8 months of research shows that there is more in play than just schools and housing prices, although those are certainly issues) and to institutionalize the work arounds.

That is the focus of our current research. We'll keep you posted.

Carol