Manhattan has almost no middle class people with kids. At most there are some upper middle class lawyers/bankers/programmers fighting it out over a handful of decent public schools. I don’t consider that functional or healthy.
By age 45, 86% of Americans have had kids. Out of the remaining 14%, half say they wish they had kids. Just 5% say they don’t want kids—a number virtually unchanged from 1990. You can’t call an urban area functional and healthy if it can’t accommodate the medium and long term needs of 80-90% of the population.
Those kids aren’t middle class, and the situation for them is not functional or healthy. The median household income in the communities where New York County (Manhattan) public school kids live is around $40,000, half the median income of New York County as a whole. (For obvious reasons, the situation is reversed in most of the rest of the country—households with kids earn more than households without them, because they’re statistically more likely to have two earners and older heads of the household.) 75% of New York Public School kids are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. The public school system does not serve a representative cross section of the community, but people who are stuck in the city due to availability of service jobs, availability of public housing, etc. Many of whom will flee to the suburbs as soon as their economic situation improves. They’re people like some members of my family, new immigrants who lived in the city while getting established, but moved to Long Island as soon as they got their feet under them.
People have been playing up the “revival” of cities over the past two decades, but it turns out that was entirely due to college educated white people with no kids: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/where-have.... From 2000-2017, the rate of urban living for people with school-aged kids actually dropped 5%.
I went to grad school with a lot of people who went to Manhattan to get jobs in the financial industry. Almost all of them, when they had kids, moved out of the city to Connecticut or wherever. And I'm pretty sure the balance who stayed in the city after they had kids sent them to private school.
>People have been playing up the “revival” of cities over the past two decades, but it turns out that was entirely due to college educated white people with no kids
Given that cities like Boston were still losing population 20 years ago, I do sometimes wonder if the current urban living revival (to a relative handful of cities) is mostly a fad among a very specific demographic that could reverse fairly easily with a generational change.
Here in Germany a cursory search shows that the biggest cities (Berlin & Hamburg, both their own states like DC in the US) are at the bottom of the children-per-woman chart while the top spots are mostly taken by the most rural states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_ferti...
And perhaps more "incriminating" is that last spot is taken by Berlin while the first by Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin on all sides (and thus containing all its suburbs).
This does not match my experience living in Manhattan. I lived in a building where many of the people had children and the neighbourhood had a lot of businesses and facilities for children. While they might have been in the minority, it would be a gross exaggeration to say "Manhattan has almost no middle class people with kids".
I did not see any of my neighbours finances and doubtlessly they were above national median incomes (this is NYC and Manhattan after all). But these were not wall street brokers, they appeared as middle-class in their lifestyle as those I know in the suburbs.
In a normal population pyramid, people with kids will compromise a significant plurality of people. Nationwide, about a third of households have kids. In Manhattan, it’s half that.
Moreover, far fewer of those kids come from the middle class. 18% of kids in New York City attend private school, about double the national rate. Of the public school kids, 75% are eligible for free or reduced price lunch, double the national average. Applying some back of the envelope math, middle class households with kids comprise about 3% of Manhattan, versus 19% nationwide. That’s huge.
Sounds like you are moving the goal posts. If you said "less than average amount of middle class families per capita" then that is obvious. You said "almost no middle class people with kids" which is in my experience misleading and almost certainly false. Given the massive population of Manhattan, even if the percentages are as skewed as heavily as you believe they are, that means there is still a significant and visible population of middle class families. Certainly enough to support a large number of businesses specifically for them.
One of the surprises I had when moving to NYC was the amount of families. I didn't expect it, thinking most of the population would be young single professionals.
You’re the one moving the goal posts. We were not talking about whether the population of families was significant “enough to support a large number of businesses.” I was replying to a post that suggested New York was an example of “a living, breathing, functional and healthy” urban community. By my reckoning, middle class households with kids are underrepresented by a factor of six in Manhattan. That’s is a hugely distorted demographic statistic that suggests New York City is inhospitable to families. Yes, 3% of Manhattan households is like tens of thousands of households. But it’s a small minority. “Almost none” isn’t all that hyperbolic.
Given that 85% of people will have kids at some point, I think that disqualifies New York City from being deemed “functional” and “healthy.” If we are looking for cues as to how to design urban environments, we should be looking at places that serve the needs of normal people. New York City is not one of those places.
I'm responding directly to your claim using your own words. Again you want to change the subject, which is fine.
> I think that disqualifies New York City from being deemed “functional” and “healthy.”
I made no claim for or against that point. I responded to your claim "almost no middle class families" which I believe to be false. Feel free to walk back that hyperbole if it isn't a true representation of your beliefs. If you want to make a point about how functional or healthy NYC is you should do so without making grossly exaggerated claims to support your argument.
I'm normally in line with many of your arguments rayiner, (they're usually well supported by data which I like), but in reading through this particular thread in its entirety, it does appear that you've done a little goal post moving.
Just as a matter of full disclosure, I feel that the absence of middle class families does not make an area any more unhealthy than the absence of, say, poor black families makes an area unhealthy. This is very much just a personal opinion here, but every demographic in a nation does not have to be proportionately represented in a community for that community to be "healthy".
> Just as a matter of full disclosure, I feel that the absence of middle class families does not make an area any more unhealthy than the absence of, say, poor black families makes an area unhealthy. This is very much just a personal opinion here, but every demographic in a nation does not have to be proportionately represented in a community for that community to be "healthy".
I think for a community to be healthy, it must be designed to accommodate a normal person’s life cycle. For 90% of people, that means raising kids, and, eventually, grand kids. Current and future parents aren’t just any random demographic, they’re almost everybody. They’re up there with “people who use the bathroom at work.” A place that isn’t a good place for people to raise kids is literally unsustainable, and that’s not healthy.
The absence of middle class people in New York City, and the tendency of lower income families to leave when their incomes improve, is a strong signal that it’s not a good place for non-wealthy people to raise kids. I don’t think you can call a place that fails to accommodate such a basic life function “healthy.” New York City is literally unsustainable—it would cease to exist if it weren’t for continuous international immigration. Suburbia might be ugly and car dependent, but at least it’s a place where normal people can meet all of their life needs. (Note I’m not advocating for suburbia. I’m criticizing urbanists for failing to offer any solutions that speak to the 90% of people who have or want kids. They’re selling beautiful office buildings without bathrooms.)
A similar situation plays out in cities like London - a ton of people move out to raise families; historically it's been possible for the middle class to have children and live a few zones out, but it's getting much harder for anyone without inheritance.
The problem is that there are very few cities that aren't either tiny, or endless car based sprawl.
> A similar situation plays out in cities like London - a ton of people move out to raise families; historically it's been possible for the middle class to have children and live a few zones out, but it's getting much harder for anyone without inheritance.
> The problem is that there are very few cities that aren't either tiny, or endless car based sprawl.
not to be trite, but isn't "very few cities that aren't ... tiny" sort of definitional? england only has the population for 6 greater londons, if you crammed them all together. would spreading the population across six of them bring prices down enough for everyone to have the nice flat they want? how long would that remain the case?
Manhattan.