
America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births - laurex
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/where-have-all-the-children-gone/594133/
======
CalRobert
A city has 100 homes. Local homeowners vote against any new construction to
preserve taxpayer-funded parking welfare (aka neighborhood character)

This means that house prices are a race to the top so to speak. You're always
competing with your neighbors.

The first thing you do is have both of them work (this happened ~4 decades
ago). Even if you don't want to, you have to, because your neighbors are doing
it and they're your competition in the home hunt.

The second thing you do is live together with other unrelated adults to save
money on rent (hey, housing is scarce for some dumb reason, after all).

The third thing you do is decide not to have kids, because after all, the 2+
bed flats are full of adult professionals sharing them. You can't possibly
outbid them!

Meanwhile, the few extremely well-paid people are able to pay for the nice
homes that were built before the housing cartels took over. Everyone else is
screwed. They can move to the country, but jobs are scarce and crappy <massive
generalization of course>.

Not sure what comes after step 3. Maybe we could trying building a flat or
two?

~~~
Symmetry
I don't doubt that increasing their own home values is part of it, but here in
the North East where I live when I hear co-workers making the case for
restricting housing development they're concerned about one of two things.
Either that if their town was more affordable the wrong sort of person would
move in, they'd go to school with their kids, and either harm their kids or
teach them bad habits. Or that more people would mean more cars and more
congested streets.

~~~
AvocadoPanic
We're also concerned that there may be too many kids for the existing school,
especially higher density residential construction, and then existing
homeowners will be asked to pay for the expansion / new school.

~~~
CalRobert
Adding facilities can be a condition of planning permission for new homes. A
growing population of kids means more schools, so whether they're in infill or
in suburbia can be addressed through similar mechanisms.

------
tempsy
Such a bad take. The actual "elite" in urban centers _are_ the ones walking
around with strollers.

Have a kid in the big city is the ultimate flex. No one else has kids because
they can barely afford to live there themselves, let alone support a kid in
it.

Edit: Also, it's not as if the author failed to mention that it's expensive to
raise families in the city. It's that he says "yes it's really expensive to
raise kids in the big city" but then goes off on a completely different
tangent to say that everyone living in NYC and SF are "affluent childless"
singles who just want to turn the city into their own childless entertainment
machine, which completely negates his earlier comment on cost of living as the
primary reason why there are so few young families in the city (plus something
about fewer people enjoying sex).

~~~
pmart123
“violent downtowns typified by the ‘mean streets’ of the 1970s became clean
and safe in the 1990s”

While I’m not trying to be overly critical, he is also off base with his
violent crime statistics as the nineties had the highest aggregate number of
murders up until the end of the decade.

~~~
peanutgal2600
20 years after Roe vs Wade.

~~~
dralley
And, simultaneously, the removal of lead from gasoline

~~~
wcfields
I don't know if this has ever been hypothesized, but HIV infection rates, and
AIDS mortality among IV drug users in the 90's before the advent of
medications?

~~~
hollerith
Are you claiming that being infected with HIV makes a person more likely to
commit crimes?

~~~
dralley
I think he's claiming that drug users are more likely to commit crimes, and
(injectable) drug users caught HIV from sharing needles.

------
jonknee
Birthrates are also declining outside of cities at similar rates [1]. It may
be a little more apparent in expensive cities because childless people tend to
not like suburbs and choose density if they can afford it, but I don't think
cities are the root cause.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2018/10/19/us-
fertilit...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2018/10/19/us-fertility-
rates-collapse-finger-pointing-blame-follow/)

~~~
war1025
I've got my money on the "We spend twenty years telling adolescents that
children are terrible and having them will ruin their life, so when the time
comes they have to climb over a mountain of conditioning to even consider the
idea" space.

~~~
downrightmike
No, people just grow up and see that people are assholes, progeny double so.

~~~
patrickaljord
You're saying kids are assholes? What?

------
coldtea
> _There are many reasons New York might be shrinking, but most of them come
> down to the same unavoidable fact: Raising a family in the city is just too
> hard._

Harder than in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, up to 80s? Millions of dirt poor
immigrants raised children in the city just fine, and tons of working and
middle class people were born and raised there.

I seriously doubt it's "too hard" in any other sense, except job/rent wise.

~~~
tropo
That'll do it though.

It used to be that the cities had lots of single-income families. They only
had to compete with each other in the bidding war for good housing.

Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes, so now we
have lots of two-income households in that bidding war. Same-sex couples also
became legal, adding even more two-income households.

Meanwhile, low-cost forms of housing were legislated away. You can rent an
apartment or be homeless, but you can't rent an SRO (single-room occupancy) or
bed cage. The homeless scare away families, and the lack of SRO options forces
single people into the bidding war for larger housing.

~~~
clairity
> "Women entered the job market due to birth control and legal changes..."

the argument that dual-income households becoming necessities for home
ownership and raising a family is plausible, if unsupported.

but the quoted causal relationship above is not even plausible, let alone
supported. women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their
ambitions and support their families, just like men. other societal changes
may have aided or hindered that ambition to various effect, but they don't
form the driving force as you state.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> the argument that dual-income households becoming necessities for home
> ownership and raising a family is plausible, if unsupported.

"Elizabeth Warren’s book, The Two-Income Trap, explained Before she was a
politician, Warren wrote a controversial book about family life and economics.

The “two-income trap,” as described by Warren, really consists of three
partially separate phenomena that have arisen as families have come to rely on
two working adults to make ends meet:

* The addition of a second earner means, in practice, a big increase in household fixed expenses for things like child care and commuting.

* Much of the money that American second earners bring in has been gobbled up, in practice, by zero-sum competition for educational opportunities expressed as either skyrocketed prices for houses in good school districts or escalating tuition at public universities.

* Last, while the addition of the second earner has not brought in much gain, it has created an increase in downside risk by eliminating an implicit insurance policy that families used to rely on."

[https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/1/23/18183091/t...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book)

> women entered the job market because they wanted to realize their ambitions
> and support their families, just like men. other societal changes may have
> aided or hindered that ambition to various effect, but they don't form the
> driving force as you state.

Regardless of _why_ , increased labor participation from woman joining the
workforce in greater numbers than previously [1] was going to drive inflation
for inelastic goods and services like housing, childcare, and education. It
now has become a prisoner's dilemma: participate in the treadmill or find a
way off.

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/women-in-the-workforce-
be...](https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/women-in-the-workforce-before-
during-and-after-the-great-recession/pdf/women-in-the-workforce-before-during-
and-after-the-great-recession.pdf) (PDF, page 2)

~~~
oposa
As a Northern European it does seem a bit of a bad deal that women are
expected to work but there isn't much of a guarantee for parental leave,
affordable child care or even vacation. But I guess there isn't that much
precedent for such things.

~~~
bobthechef
That expectation is rather cruel. For decades, women who make motherhood their
"careers" have been looked down on as somehow inferior to women who pursue
careers. Even the terminology used to describe such women is disparaging and
loaded with shame and disappointment, as if the woman in question had chosen
or had been forced to choose an inferior option. That she is in some sense a
failure for prioritizing her children over her career.

~~~
toasterlovin
It’s perverse that in our (supposedly) liberated world the standard that women
are held to is men.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Isn't that what equality was supposed to be?

EDIT: Anecdotally, it seems that equality was strived for and it's not turning
out as great as a lot of folks hoped for. Educated women don't date down like
men did/do which makes finding a partner in itself much more difficult [1],
women want the same career opportunities as men while also taking leave that
puts them at a disadvantage, which is unavoidable; you will be at a
disadvantage to someone who is willing to not take their leave to focus on
their career, regardless of gender, and men usually take less or no paternity
leave even when offered [2]. A lot of people raced to find success and
actualization in the workplace, and it is turning out poorly [3]. We have
housing, childcare, and education cost inflation due to more dollars chasing
the same amount of those necessities. [4]

I want to be _absolutely clear_ that I support woman having equal rights,
equal pay, and should never, ever be discriminated against. I shouldn't have
to say that, but you know, the Internet. The above paragraph are my
observations as an armchair anthropologist.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-
gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates) (The dating gap: why the odds are
stacked against female graduates finding a like-minded man)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878117](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878117)
(HN Thread: After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468767)
(HN Thread: The Loneliness Epidemic)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474292)
(My HN comment above citing the Two Income Trap)

~~~
elliekelly
In the context of race would you measure equality against the standard of
“white?”

I should hope not. For the same reason measuring women against the standard of
“men” isn’t equality.

~~~
tomp
Yes, race equality is measured against the standard of "white" \- people
advocate for _blacks_ to become _richer_ and _less_ harrassed by the police,
not for _whites_ to become _poorer_ and be harrassed _more_ (btw, both would
achieve the same amount of "equality").

Same for men vs. women - the drive wasn't/isn't to make _men_ work _less_ (and
stay at home more, i.e. like women used to be and like my ideal world would
look like), but to make _women_ work _more_.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Same for men vs. women - the drive wasn't/isn't to make men work less (and
> stay at home more, i.e. like women used to be and like my ideal world would
> look like), but to make women work more.

Indeed. My wife is not a stay at home mom because I force her to be. It it her
voluntary choice (and I am happy to support her decision and be the sole
income earner in the family) that she gets more happiness and joy from raising
our children than as a drone at a desk job or climbing an unfulfilling and
meaningless career ladder (her words, not mine).

I think what isn't reasonable is when both parents want to work and expect to
achieve similar results. You can't have it all, and you're going to be deeply
disappointed when you try and fail.

------
rmuesi
The arguments in this article seem extremely dramatic, simplistic and
unsupported.

Just one example out of many I found in the article: jobs in big cities are
the highest paying. Thus, the article quickly announces then moves on, living
in a big city equals a “winner takes all” situation, which leads to dramatic
inequality.

How does that remotely support such a dramatic conclusion? Does having a bit
less paying job mean you have nothing? Do people not commute into the city for
work? Do the lower costs of living outside big cities not offset the lower
wages? How does this translate into high inequality? Where does all that
inequal wealth go when these “childless couples” die? Etc, etc.

I haven’t read the Atlantic in awhile, but this seemed like something I’d find
in the opinion section of my local newspaper. So many poorly supported points
in this article.

~~~
alltakendamned
> Do the lower costs of living outside big cities not offset the lower wages?

At least in Europe I have found that while salaries can be a bit higher in
cities (maybe 10-20%) compared to rural areas, the housing cost can be
massively higher (200-500% higher). The difference between regional and
capital cities is smaller, but can still be important.

This doesn't take into account other costs such as food (supermarkets are
cheaper) and entertainment (mostly because there's less of it and
mountainbiking in the forest is largely free).

I'm always surprised so few people seem to realize and take advantage of this.

------
madhadron
I look at it a little differently. The urban cores in the USA are actively
hostile places for anyone to be. You step outside your door...into an empty
hallway of doors. You take an elevator or stairs down to a place with a few
mailboxes, then step outside.

Outside, you have a narrow strip of concrete, possibly with a few trees, that
you are allowed to inhabit. Beyond it is as asphalt with two ton steel
contraptions whizzing past at speeds that will maim or kill you.

There are a few places you can go from here. There are a few parks, where you
can have some green space, along with the sound of the steel contraptions.
There are other strips of concrete throughout the city between the
contraptions' domain and the buildings. There are places you can pay to be
allowed to occupy for a time. There are places you are paid to be for some
number of hours each day. And there's the public library if you can reach it.

If you're responsible for just you and have access to a ready stream of money,
you can cobble together an okay existence from this. You escape into
intellectual pursuits in your small housing box. You spend lots of hours at
the place you are paid to be. You visit your friends' small housing boxes. You
spend some money to have somewhere else to go from time to time.

If you have small children, this changes. Intellectual pursuits? They can't
read yet, so your only option is parking them in front of videos. It hurts to
see their faces go slack and their motions grow spastic. You spend time taking
them to visit their friends in other boxes and meeting their friends at the
park. You breathe a sigh of relief when they enter school, since now they have
a place to be analogous to the place you are paid to be. You can't let them
outside to play on the narrow strips of concrete. One false move and some
yahoo in a steel contraption has killed them.

If you want families in the city, bulldoze the major urban cores and replace
them with low rise cohousing communities. Cars are parked on the edge.
Everyone lives in spaces that face onto communal spaces. Community centers
become focal points in each block, along with lots of other public space,
indoors and out, instead of turning it all over to commercial interests. Short
of that, if you want to raise a family and you have the means, you buy your
own place that has its own small park and inside space to play. Everyone is
cut off and must own the same amenities because of the tyranny of commercial
space and cars over the ground level of the city.

~~~
jinushaun
I’m raising a child in NYC right now. What is this dystopia you are
describing? It’s the opposite of my personal experience. NYC is such a kid
friendly place to raise kids: Museums, zoos, aquariums, free events for kids,
concerts just for babies, parks, swimming pools, little league, soccer league,
skate parks, etc… we have it all. I can’t fathom how people raise kids in the
suburbs. They must be so bored…

You have a very narrow definition of the infrastructure required to raise
kids. People have been raising families in cities long before suburbs were
invented.

~~~
rootusrootus
> They must be so bored…

Your preconceived notions of what suburban living is like are just as
inaccurate as the perceptions of city life of the person you responded to.

~~~
stouset
I grew up in a suburb and was bored shitless. I had one friend that lived
within walking distance, and everyone else was too far away to get to without
a car, which meant that I didn't get to see my friends unless it was
convenient for one of my two parents (who both held full-time jobs). Cycling
anywhere outside of the local neighborhood was out of the question, since the
roads _connecting_ neighborhoods were full of fast-moving traffic and no
bicycle lanes or pedestrian walkways.

There were "woods" between the endless maze of houses, but all of them were
just parts of other people's property. And who was I going to play with in
them, except for my one nearby friend?

I ended up just playing a lot of video games.

For all that urban centers are supposedly "hostile places" (according to the
GP), I look at the adults and children I know in cities and I see mostly fit,
healthy, active people with multiple hobbies and interests. I look at the
adults and children I know in suburbs and I see overweight, sedentary people
who spend so much of their life commuting between work, school, and home, that
they barely have time for more than one day of a week of something fun like an
organized sport. The rest is just spent at home watching TV or playing video
games.

If I do decide have children, I definitely know what kind of place _I_ want to
do it in.

~~~
burfog
I lived in that kind of place. I also had my one nearby friend.

We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes each
side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often got to a
decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of the older
bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went anyway.

We had similar woods. We went out there and built a fort. We camped. We
misbehaved. We went to the railroad tracks and put coins on the rails. We
hiked a mile to a lake, carrying an inflated raft and fishing or camping gear.

Don't blame the suburb if you chose to play video games. I hear that cities
also have video games.

~~~
lultimouomo
> We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes
> each side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often
> got to a decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of
> the older bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went
> anyway.

And I bet it was uphill! Both ways!

------
stevenjgarner
I don't live in a big city or an urban area. I live in a small midwestern
town, population 10,000. I paid $40,000 for my 4-bedroom house. I don't have a
mortgage. I have TWO gigabit optical Internet connections for which I pay less
than $70 per month - since the 1990's! I work remotely only occasionally
visiting the fancy places you all speak of, wondering why you put up with what
you put up with. I employ several programmers, including very talented folks
from Russia and Colombia. I have taught open source full stack development for
a few years now, with graduates getting positions at the top silicon valley
firms. You'd be amazed how many start-ups have succeeded from towns like this.
I only recently put a lock on my house - not because I did not feel safe -
more an IoT thing. I have raised 5 kids here. My town has a village square,
and yes a Walmart. My town has more than 30 miles of bike/hiking/skiing
trails. Parks everywhere. There is a sportsplex less than 1,000 steps from my
house with 3 full size basketball courts, indoor pool, outdoor pool, hot tub,
200m indoor track, comprehensive weight/exercise/fitness facilities, etc. Less
than 1,000 steps in another direction is a modern library with a great kids
section. This is not an unusual town. There are many like it in America. Do
they have problems? Sure. They are the places that teenagers used to grow up
to move away from. Those kids are coming back now and having families of their
own, with "actual births".

~~~
nikanj
Are there jobs in that town? That seems to make or break a small town.

~~~
stevenjgarner
Yes there are jobs. I have clients in small towns all over the midwest and
there are plenty of jobs in all those towns. It is so very hard to find
employees willing to work! I think my point though is that given the nature of
this HN space, most of the "readers" have the skills to work remotely from
anywhere. Make yourself a valuable and treasured resource and employers will
want you to work, even if it is over a connection. I think the key metric is
not whether jobs are available in a small town, but rather the nature of
available Internet access - thanks to the decades old USDA Broadband
initiative, many small towns across America have better Internet than larger
cities, especially cities monopolized by multiple-system operators (MSO's).
Many small towns do not. That is where one needs to be selective.

~~~
stevenjgarner
One resource to select rural towns where broadband is available is the USDA
Telecommunications Program Funded Service Areas map:
[https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/all-
programs/telec...](https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/all-
programs/telecommunications-programs/telecom-maps)

------
ocschwar
A major problem in American cities is what's called "contraception zoning."
It's a de facto and sometimes de jure ban on large (as in 4 or more bedroom)
apartments.

~~~
fountainofage
Could you expand on this? I've never met a couple that could afford a 4
bedroom apartment on their own, so I'm not sure how allowing even larger
apartments solves anything?

~~~
ocschwar
The reason you can't afford a 4 bedroom apartment when you can afford a HOUSE
is that large apartments are rare in American cities, because municipal
governments do everything to prevent them from being built. The few that exist
were built mostly before WW2, and are rented to students.

In other countries, large apartments are plentiful, and they are cheaper than
houses the same size, because of economies of scale.

------
ggm
See that column of "white college grad, no kids" -what do you think happens
demographically to that column in 10/15 years time? Sure, some people move on.
But, also, some people stay and have kids.

Come back in 50 years and say if this was a glitch in a trend or not
Demographics is sometimes a story which is only really told in hindsight.

~~~
asdff
I agree especially if "living in the city" selects for someone career focused
who is already putting off kids or even marriage until they are more
financially stable.

------
jayd16
What if we look at this another way and ask why young people can't or won't
start their careers in rural areas to begin with?

~~~
asdff
People work in the city because they get hired there.

------
jseliger
Further good reading on this subject: _Empty Planet_
[https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-
planet...](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-planet-by-
darrell-bricker-and-john-ibbitson/9781984823212/)

------
OliverJones
Japan is a decade or so "ahead" of USA in population decline, so it's worth
looking at for hints about what might happen. They're starting to encourage
immigration; a big change for that country.

Up until 1832 England's Industrial Revolution cities had severe under-
representation in their Parliament:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832).
(In the USA, by comparison, the state of Massachusetts was a Calvinist
theocracy until 1833: England was ahead.) So the USA's allocation of electoral
power followed England's example as the industrial revolution was just
emerging, not when it was mature. USA's myth of one person one vote isn't the
truth: it has the same problems as early 19th century England in that respect.

An inexorable positive (unstable) feedback loop makes rich crowded cities get
richer and more crowded. We hackers know this: startups locate in the Bay Area
even though it's the highest of high-rent districts and makes us burn through
investor money faster. Tech needs tech (Bay area). Finance needs finance (New
York). Beltway bandits need beltway bandits (DC).

But this effect doesn't last forever. Detroit (cars) used to be that way: no
more. Lowell, Massachusetts (textiles) used to be that way: no more.

The big cities need more housing. To make that happen they need more robust
infrastructure. That means they need bigger budgets. USA's rural politicians
have propagated the myth that taxation is theft for a long time now, so it's
hard to pay for that infrastructure. California's starting to escape the
Proposition 13 trap laid for it by Howard Jarvis 45 years ago. It's possible
other jurisdictions can escape too.

More housing closer to work, and better infrastructure, can only lead to less
hectic lives for city-dwellers. That will lead to more sex and more kiddos.
But, by the time that happens, it's possible that software work will have
moved to less crowded places and something other industry will dominate.

~~~
DrAwdeOccarim
You know, your point of "better infrastructure, can only lead to less hectic
lives for city-dwellers. That will lead to more sex and more kiddos." rings
really true. I wonder if all these reasons/explanations given in this article
and that I see floating around boils down to free time. Like how when NYC had
that summer blackout a few years ago there was a mini baby boom ~9 months
later. The lack of power meant everyone was board and hot and in the dark so
they decided to bone. The frenetic pace of life without support systems (e.g.,
close extended family) has just pushed sex down as a priority. So the way to
get people to make more babies is to give them more free time. I bet this is
an evolutionary thing too. If you're constantly on the run from predators and
stuff, you shouldn't be making children. Only when things calm down would it
make sense to procreate. So sex drive is probably directly related to free
time...

------
thomas
Many, many opinions here presented as “unavoidable facts”. One man’s
observations presented as evidence when the points he makes small right but
don’t hold up to deeper inspection.

------
whyenot
When I lived in San Francisco, during the aftermath of the first dot-com boom,
it was not uncommon to find used syringes at the playgrounds in GG Park. I was
living in an apartment in the Inner Sunset, and every could of days the
building manager had to hose down the steps to our building because someone
was using them as a public toilet. By all I have heard, the situation in SF
has only gotten worse. I don't know, it's not where I would want to raise
kids.

~~~
nostrademons
I think it's moved. GG Park, when I've visited recently, has been delightful -
I let my 18mo play freely in many of the open areas. The Mission, Tenderloin,
Civic Center, and much of Market Street looks like a warzone. Or an outhouse.
Or an outhouse that got bombed in a warzone.

SF is weird in that you can have very nice areas that are literally just a
couple blocks away from hellholes.

------
CptFribble
The less advanced a society, the less options for adults with gainful
employment. Making babies is one option pretty much always available, so when
you introduce more options it makes sense that making babies would get pushed
back among all the other options, right?

So why are we continually surprised that non-agricultural societies have
declining birthrates? I feel like we should have all gotten used to this by
now.

~~~
rayiner
It’s not quite so simple. Both men and women state the ideal number of
children they want to have as about 2.7:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/american-
fertility...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/american-fertility-is-
falling-short-of-what-women-want.html). Our society doesn’t just introduce
more alternatives to having kids, it introduces more factors that get in the
way or having kids. We’ve structured our society around this extended
adolescence, where young people aren’t even really done with school until well
into their adulthood. By the time they get their feet under them and settled
down, they’re rushing to have a couple of kids before the clock runs out.

~~~
thrwayxyz
That sounds like a problem for women. Men can happily have children in their
70s as the current president has shown.

~~~
abootstrapper
You may be surprised to learn, men need women to have children. If women are
waiting later to have children, it doesn't mater how old the man is. Further,
even if it were a problem only for women, that doesn't make the problem moot.

~~~
thrwayxyz
It's a problem for women over 30. If men merely have to delay reproduction by
40 years to their 70s you can quite easily kick the can down the road for the
next generation to deal with. Given how much worse each next generation is
doing this may well seem like a great deal in 2060 to the women who are born
in 10 years time.

~~~
rayiner
Fun fact: millennial households earn more than their parents’ did at the same
age: [https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/FT_18...](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/FT_18.12.04_IncomeGenerations1.png?resize=837,1024)

~~~
shawndrost
Pretty obfuscatory fact. Inflation-adjusted wages are flat to declining.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-
us...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-
real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/)

It confuses the matter to talk about household earnings, which obscure the
increase in two-income households. (Two-income households have more income and
expenses for a given standard of living, since homemakers are contributing to
household earnings and expenses in a shadowed form.)

------
ianai
The US is optimized for corporations. It’s not news that while company profits
are at all time highs, individual income has stayed stagnant. Family growth
won’t happen without societal factors reinforcing families.

The US just went through the Great Recession. It took a world war and a
national initiative pro-household building to birth the baby boomers after the
Great Depression. There’s been nothing like that following the GR.

Meanwhile, many factors are against family building:

Income being stagnant to negative.

Record setting real estate prices. Tract housing projects provided affordable
housing after WW2.

Poor job prospects - people were getting CAREERS after WW2. Complete with
PENSIONS. People in 2019 are lucky to have full time work with health
insurance and benefits. Pensions are unheard of outside of select few
positions.

Carbon level increases tend toward more violence.

Warming climates tend toward societies that are more hostile, less expansive.

There are other factors, but I’ll stop there.

------
rayiner
> Okay, you might be thinking, but so what? Happy singles are no tragedy.
> Childlessness is no sin. There is no ethical duty to marry and mate until
> one’s fertility has exceeded the replacement rate. What’s the matter with a
> childless city?

It’s relatively recently that anyone would take these assertions as a given.

~~~
voxl
It's relatively recently that slavery was outlawed.

Recency has little to do with it.

~~~
rayiner
I’m just surprised to see the assertion in print. I’m not that old, and I
don’t think you would’ve seen it stated so matter of factly when I was a kid.

~~~
harryh
FWIW, I read that passage as being presented somewhat ironically.

------
Animats
Well, yes. Most of the developed countries have birth rates below replacement
rate.[1]

Over the next century, the poor countries and the ones that keep women home
and pregnant win. Within countries, the groups that keep women home and
pregnant win.

[1] [http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/total-
fertility-r...](http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/total-fertility-
rate/)

~~~
rmuesi
This is an unpopular opinion but one that seems to be self evident, at least
from a demographic and perhaps cultural “win”.

Many articles, including this one, champion the cause of immigration as a
positive to society, a reason of which is making up for the low birth rate of
said societies existing members. And I’m not refuting that.

But since immigration tends to occur from undeveloped countries to developed
countries, what happens when you apply this trend across many generations and
across many developed parts of the world?

And what does this, or should this, mean for a society and culture in present
time?

------
tomohawk
I've known so many young couples who loved being in the city, and then they
had kids. Once they realized the schools were terrible and that there was no
chance of improving them, they moved to the burbs. It was either that, or mom
got mugged and there was no staying after that.

In either case, poorly conceived and run city government institutions were the
primary cause. The single party system of special interests that controls most
cities is ridiculous.

------
jdlyga
I live in Manhattan, and I can't imagine having a kid here. There's barely
enough space for my wife and I. Plus the waiting lists, zoning drama, and
crazy daycare situations. Plus the whole place is so dirty. A lot of people do
it and are perfectly happy with it and it gives the kid more freedom, but I'm
definitely moving to the suburbs before starting a family.

------
lumberingjack
It is all about cost everything is about money. All I can say is if you are
middle class, want kids and not struggle financially wait till you have a huge
nest-egg in your 40-50s and then find a much younger girl.

------
chronotis
This entire thread is a perfect example of confirmation bias.

------
raducu
Unpopular opinion I've held since before I became a parent: childless people
should pay more taxes.

~~~
snickerbockers
That's a regressive tax that punishes people who are unable to have children
due to health problems, sexual identity, living conditions, or even failure to
get laid. People who do have children should be taxed more instead because
they're more successful, and they're the ones who benefit from higher taxes
anyways due to publicly-funded education and social programs.

~~~
leetcrew
it's probably a bad idea for a lot of reasons, but it's not a "regressive"
tax. lower income families tend to have more children, so this tax setup would
shift tax burden higher up the income ladder. it would hurt some low income
individuals, but it would help low income families as a group.

------
colechristensen
Urban real estate is as small as the market allows and gradually shrinks as
each iteration of smaller becomes normal.

Nobody wants open offices or six hundred square foot apartments but zoning
laws and the real estate economy are engineered to promote space per human
trending towards zero.

Who wants to raise a child like that.

I grew up on more acres than some apartments I've lived in had square feet and
the transition has been miserable.

~~~
esoterica
> Nobody wants open offices or six hundred square foot apartments.

Maybe if you hadn’t grown up on a 1000 acre lot in the middle of nowhere you
would have interacted with more people different from you and come to the
realization that not everyone shares your lifestyle preferences.

> zoning laws and the real estate economy are engineered to promote space per
> human trending towards zero.

This is utterly factually wrong. The vast majority of the land area of most
cities are zoned single-family only. The size of the average new construction
has also trended dramatically upwards over the past couple generations.

