A False Choice

According to the Denver Post:

Successful urban recovery has made cities expensive, too expensive for middle-class and fixed-wage workers. ... Thirty-year-olds become forty-somethings and suddenly a house for the kid, the dog and the stuff in a neighborhood where the schools are good (and free) becomes more important than urban chic. Demographic inevitability, the consolidation of the corporate headquarters of major financial institutions, utility companies and retail operations, along with the steady migration of middle-class families and jobs to the suburbs, pose threats to the long-term viability of the center city.

The full story is here. 

The "hipsters" and gays versus families" argument is an old saw.  One of the most striking things in our short time in Toronto is that the tradeoff simply doesn't exist here: Our neighborhood, like many others, is filled with families and kids.  Time for the debate in the states to grow up and get over this. Truly great cities can and should work for everyone.

Comments

[Wendy]

Maybe it's a question of progressive zoning and creativity in existing urban neighborhoods close to city centres.

I don't know your Toronto neighbourhood, Richard, but based on the neighbourhoods there I have visited or driven through (gotten lost in), I would suspect that there are a variety of housing types: duplexes, townhouses, single family, etc. and perhaps some with rental suites to help families afford to live in the city rather than the suburb (either renting out a suite as a mortgage helper or choosing to rent one of these suites to live in an area with amenities). My neighourhood in Vancouver has this, and it makes it possible for many more families to live in the inner urban areas.

Is this variety of housing options available near downtown in the average American city? Does zoning allow for an older house to be split into two living spaces? Can a decrepit house be torn down and a duplex or triplex put in its place?

Also, to be sure, Vancouver and Toronto metro areas have thousands of families making that same suburban choice for a bigger home and a commute, rather than living in the city. Or, indeed they have the ownership option of a townhouse at all, paying at $200K in a distant suburb instead of $600K (which they couldn't afford) in the gentrified inner urban neighbourhoods.

Nevertheless, if you could measure it, you'd probably find that in Canada a higher percentage of families are willing to give up space and size for a convenient location with more amenities -- a cultural difference.

Also, I would argue that when contrasted with the US, the well-funded public schools in most Canadian regions are generally comparable across the metro areas -- there is no need to go to a wealthy ex-urb to obtain a better education for your children. This simplifies the choice of where to live.

[Richard Florida]

Wendy - Nicely said. Toronto has plently of expensive pockets in the city - more expensive (at current exchange rates) than similar neighborhoods in DC, Boston and Chicago (though considerably less expensive than NYC or London). But Toronto also has a mix of housing types and tenures in these very same neighborhoods and certainly in adjacent communities which enables a wide mix of income and family types. The city is safe and the schools are good. No one needs to "move away" simply because they have children. Children and families can fare very well in core urban neighborhoods.

It's high time for Americans to realize that the city-suburb dichotomy is a false choice. Cities can be fantastic places for families. Not everyone leaves when the have kids.

[Adam Huttler]

In New York, the debate we see is less about "gays vs families" than it is about (white) Bohemians versus the (non-white) folks who've lived in a neighborhood for generations and fear displacement due to the increase in real estate costs that typically follows an influx of gays/artists/Bohemians. In a liberal city like New York, this is actually a much bigger challenge, especially since there's evidence that those fears are largely justified.

More on this subject:
http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/blogs/post/adamthehutt/2372966953820427463