8 Ways to Make Cities (and Buildings) Better for Families

Cities are increasingly child-free zones. San Francisco now has more dogs than kids and suffers from rapidly declining public school enrollment. Collectively, the US had 300,000 fewer kids living in cities in 2020 than in 2010, a trend that has only accelerated since. Faced with declining enrollment, urban districts are increasingly closing schools and consolidating resources. Childless cities are neither a good thing nor an immutable fact of nature. Done right, cities can be great places to raise kids. Adjusting for income, kids raised in cities have greater economic mobility and lower suicide rates than their suburban or rural peers. Many parents also view decamping to the suburbs as a difficult but necessary choice, a sacrifice of lifestyle and convenience at the altar of good schools and spacious housing. This has likely weighed on birth rates, which have dropped dramatically over the past 20 years even as the number of children families want has increased. It doesn’t have to be th

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• Malte Wagenbach