Do Families Matter?
Seattle’s average household size is 2.08, the smallest of any major U.S. city. Richard Morrill has an informative piece up over at Crosscut discussing this and other demographic trends based on the latest American Community Survey. In short, Seattle is apparrently overflowing with the young, single, wealthy, and overeducated (one downside of which, according to the author, is the rise of the nanny state).
Meanwhile noted sprawl apologist Joel Kotkin makes the case that families with children are the critical ingredient of prosperous cities, and that strategies to revitalize cities by attracting the “creative class” are destined to be a bust. Kotkin cites data showing that since 2000 job and population growth has been below average in the cities like Boston and San Francisco, while cities such as Houston and Raleigh Durham have become the growth leaders by attracting families in their mid-20s to mid-40s.
A lack of families with children will weaken a city’s economic prospects, according to Kotkin, and weaken a city’s community bonds, according to Morrill (and both seem particularly wary of the presence of sidewalk cafes.) But I’m not convinced it’s that simple. While job growth has been robust in the Seattle-area suburbs, downtown Seattle continues to be the region’s largest employment center. And to claim that sense of community relies on children-focussed activities like the PTA and soccer leagues belies a very limited (and nostalgic?) assessment of the possibilities for community involvement.
This is messy stuff, the stuff that punishes the smug, the stuff that makes cities so fascinating and unpredictable. But it also has everything to do with how we forge policy to manage growth in dynamic areas such as the South Lake Union neighborhood. Everyone seems to want a family-friendly South Lake Union, but perhaps that is idealistic. Who knows, maybe we should just give it to the “yupsies” and let the families have the single family neighborhoods. And perhaps that would create a young and transient labor force attractive to certain business sectors, such as software. And perhaps it’s just fine for Bellevue to be its own job center drawing its workforce from the family-friendly burbs.
All I know is that my single-family neighborhood in the Central District is downright infested with Very Small Humans.