not really sure, but I think it's the opposite in the US, where dense urban areas are higher in crime than suburbs. Although that may be changing... something I read on MSN a few days back noted that more and more of the poor in the US are ending up in the suburbs as 'gentrification' hits the urban areas... and, sadly, poverty and crime tend to go hand in hand. But for the most part, suburbs are still the place for the middle class. And a lot of families regard the suburbs as 'where we live' and all the museums, parks, etc. downtown as 'places we drive to visit'...
Stop the Plague of Sprawl!
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not really sure, but I think it's the opposite in the US, where dense urban areas are higher in crime than suburbs. Although that may be changing... something I read on MSN a few days back noted that more and more of the poor in the US are ending up in the suburbs as 'gentrification' hits the urban areas... and, sadly, poverty and crime tend to go hand in hand. But for the most part, suburbs are still the place for the middle class. And a lot of families regard the suburbs as 'where we live' and all the museums, parks, etc. downtown as 'places we drive to visit'...
I've read that too. However, I wonder if it's a real long lasting trend... because millenials and Gen X types before them are marrying and having children later in life than previous generations, so there are a lot of them staying single longer. So naturally, they will gravitate to downtown areas, where the other young single types are. The real question is what will happen when these people do start settling down with families... will they want to stay downtown or find someplace quieter with more room...
Well if the suburbs keep filling with poor populations (a la France) then we'll probably see the middle class staying in gentrified downtowns to avoid crime.
a possibility in larger cities. Smaller towns and cities, though, probably won't see anything like this, since the poor population is a whole lot smaller, the downtown and suburbs aren't that far apart, and the downtown isn't particularly attractive because of that. It's always kinda hard to make sweeping generalizations about the USA about things like this, due to the spread-out nature of the place...
I Have 3 kids and have both rented a house in the city and owned a house in the burbs. There are a few key considerations you are not thinking about.
1) Owning a standalone unit really makes sense if you have kids. Disruptive neighbors waking little kids at all hours is a nightmare. And they dont like hearing your kids cry either.
More importantly though is control over one's environment. My last landlord didnt want to pay for new appliances even though the existing ones were constantly breaking down. Every minor inconvenience becomes a major hassle when you have kids. We end up doing a load or two of laundry every day. Going to the cleaners because of a cheap landlord really, really sucks.
2) Kids need outdoor space and free play. I dont always have the time or energy to take them to the park. On Tuesday at 5:30pm, they can play in the backyard while I am making dinner.
3) Communities are built around the dominant constituent. We live in a family focused community. The YMCA's are family focused - pools designed for kids and kids activities, local entertainment activities are family focused, there's a lot of parking, the grocery stores carry the right assortment, retail is focused on families.
Cities are usually the opposite. Try crossing a busy street with 3 kids under the age of 7 because you couldnt find closer parking. The kids clothing stores are small and bad assortments. The diaper aisles at grocery stores never seem to have the right size.
4) Parks. City parks suck. I lived in west LA, a nice part of the city. But I was still always finding condoms, beer bottles and other crap at the park. Yeah, its a lot of fun pulling glass from a broken beer bottle out of your kid's foot and wondering what sort bacteria or disease he is now exposed to. Rarely get that at suburban parks.
I have a commute from hell but its better for my kids to be in the burbs. With some exceptions, cities just generally suck for kids.
My hope is that my generation is more experimental than our traditionalist suburban parents. Rather than moving, I'd like to see more people try to change their cities to match their needs.
Pretty much, but we are seeing progress in that regard. More community services and green spaces, more public transportation, and an increasing amount of "deconstruction" of things like highways (which pollute and divide communities).
our bigger older cities have a lot of the problems he mentioned. But the dominant factor in his case are the children... living downtown is always a hassle when you have them. All the problems he mentioned would be less dire for a single person. And that's the crux of the issue... the things that make downtown attractive to a single person are pretty much the opposite of what a family wants...
I was raised in a downtown and never minded it. There were plenty of parks and rec centres and such. I did have a bit of a bus ride to school, but that's about it. As a kid/tween having a movie theatre and a mall and whatnot in walking distance has advantages. I can see issues with young children being noisy in apartments, but that's not anything too major.
again, it's certainly a possibility for our bigger cities. But a lot of America is made up of smaller towns and cities where the divide between downtown and suburbs isn't all that much, so it's unlikely to change much in those places. In any event, it's going to take a few years to see just what the trend will be... when millenials start settling down and starting families. If the trend continues that people will marry/have children later in life (which seems to be the case), then there will always be a demand for downtown housing for single people. The real question is if that demand will stay there when they start families...
I was raised in the country, and I always hated downtown. Hate crowds, hate lines, hate cramped streets and buildings. But that's me. I'm curious as to how large a city you grew up in. I've lived most of my life in fairly small towns and cities, where the gap between downtown and suburbs was minor. Cheyenne, for example... I live on the very south edge of town (in one of those suburbs you hate so much ), and I can drive clear across town in 15 minutes, and get to all the shopping I need in less time than that. No crying need for gentrification or massive overhaul of downtown/public transportation. And a lot of America is like that. A lot of what this thread is discussing really applies only to our larger cities, where there really is a gap between downtown and suburbia...
I grew up mostly in Hamilton Ontario, a metro of a bit more than 700k while I was growing up, part of an urban area pushing 6 million at the time (though I'm not sure how much touching suburbs with Toronto affects things). I suppose I was more in the inner city than downtown a few times, but I think inner city vs. suburbs is more accurate for our conversation.
As someone who lives in London which is a very multicultural city it is noticeable that different sorts of people tend to have different attitudes to where they want to live. I'm just reaching the age (late 20's) where my friends are beginning to get married and have kids and it's noticeable that the Brits tend to be thinking and looking at moving out (though only one couple actually has moved out of three). Immigrants even 2nd or 3rd generation ones and mixed race couples tend to be more prone to stay in the inner city.
When I was in St. Catharines, ON I rented an apartment. They tried turning all the units into Condos, and wanted all us tenants to buy our own apartments. The thing was, that the 'utility fees' (or whatever they were called - the fees for taking care of the general building and lawn and whatever) were HALF the rent. The RoI on THAT was incredibly small, even if one had the cash and didn't take out a loan.
Ever since, this has made me very leery of 'condos'.
Ever since, this has made me very leery of 'condos'.
I would use my experiences as a kid to raise children if I somehow had some. There's plenty of things that are great for parents, but not so great for kids, and the latter matters more. The kid has their whole life defined by it, parents aren't so defined by the process.
to be fair, how many other nations do suburbia like we do? From the comments on here, I get the idea that no other population spread out like we did, where single family dwellings on fairly large plots are the norm for the middle class. It seems that other nations, still keeping most people inside cities, did more to make them livable for families; whereas our inner cities were turned over to the poor...
Australia and New Zealand have a suburbia very like the US and a lot of people in the UK would like to have a US style suburban lifestyle but it just isn't possible in our small, crowded island. Which isn't really surprising when you consider that there is an English hostility to flats and city living going right back to the Tudor's. Unlike France where the nobility had their town houses in the middle of Paris before later moving to Versailles the English aristocracy tended to have big houses with gardens on the urban fringe of West London e.g. Buckingham House (which was alter bought by the King and became Buckingham Palace) as built by the Duke of Buckingham. The 13 Colonies and the other, later British settler colonies seemed to have got that cultural distaste and when technology, money and space combine you get suburbia. Look at Melbourne which in 1900 was the least dense city on the planet. Even less dense than LA never mind the East Coast cities.