Posted on 03/23/2005 8:36:59 PM PST by Mike Fieschko
PORTLAND, Ore. - The Pearl District in the heart of this perpetually self-improving city seems to have everything in new urban design and comfort, from the Whole Foods store where fresh-buffed bell peppers are displayed like runway models to the converted lofts that face sidewalk gardens.Everything except children.
Crime is down. New homes and businesses are sprouting everywhere. But in what may be Portland's trendiest and fastest-growing neighborhood, the number of school-age children grew by only three between the census counts in 1990 and 2000, according to demographers at Portland State University.
"The neighborhood would love to have more kids, that's probably the top of our wish list," said Joan Pendergast of the Pearl Neighborhood Association. "We don't want to be a one-dimensional place."
It is a problem unlike the urban woes of cities like Detroit and Baltimore, where families have fled decaying neighborhoods, business areas and schools. Portland is one of the nation's top draws for the kind of educated, self-starting urbanites that midsize cities are competing to attract. But as these cities are remodeled to match the tastes of people living well in neighborhoods that were nearly abandoned a generation ago, they are struggling to hold on to enough children to keep schools running and parks alive with young voices.
San Francisco, where the median house price is now about $700,000, had the lowest percentage of people under 18 of any large city in the nation, 14.5 percent, compared with 25.7 percent nationwide, the 2000 census reported. Seattle, where there are more dogs than children, was a close second. Boston, Honolulu, Portland, Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin and Atlanta, all considered, healthy, vibrant urban areas, were not far behind. The problem is not just that American women are having fewer children, reflected in the lowest birth rate ever recorded in the country.
Officials say that the very things that attract people who revitalize a city - dense vertical housing, fashionable restaurants and shops and mass transit that makes a car unnecessary - are driving out children by making the neighborhoods too expensive for young families.
Other cities have tried and failed to curb family flight. In Portland, the new mayor, Tom Potter, says demography does not have to be destiny. He has dedicated his term to trying to keep children in the city.
Every child a city loses, on average, can mean a loss of about $5,000 for the school district, officials say. Children also create a constituency for parks, trails and public safety improvements, Mr. Potter said, and their parents tend to favor upgrading those amenities through higher taxes. He has been bringing children in to speak to the City Council and has pushed for incentives for affordable housing with enough bedrooms to accommodate bigger families.
A former police chief who helped pioneer community patrolling, Mayor Potter has 14 grandchildren and says a city's health should be measured by its youngest citizens. "We can't let Portland become a retirement city or a city without neighborhood schools," he said.
New York and Los Angeles, because of their large immigrant populations, have maintained their base of children, but demographers, pointing to falling birth rates among Latinos and other ethnic groups, say the nation's biggest cities may soon follow the others.
In Portland, the trends are not in Mayor Potter's favor. From 1990 to 2003 the city added more than 90,000 people, growing to an estimated 529,121 residents, but Portland is now educating the fewest students in more than 80 years.
The problem is not that children are leaving for private schools, officials said. It is that new people attracted to the city tend to have higher incomes, having already raised a family; are retiring; or are single and unlikely to have children.
After interviewing 300 parents who had left the city, researchers at Portland State found that high housing costs and a desire for space were the top reasons.
Tina Ray lived in Portland for 12 years before moving to Gresham, where her 9-year-old daughter attends school. Her family left for a bigger house and more space, she said. "It's kid friendly, with a great sense of community, and lots of sports leagues," she said.
Many Portland families are relocating to the newest edge suburbs, where housing prices are cheapest, including Clark County across the Columbia River in Washington, Portland State demographers say.
After a drop of 10,000 students in the last decade, Portland officials called in March for the closing of six schools, prompting cries of grief from three generations of adults who say that nothing takes the heart out of a neighborhood like a shuttered school.
The pool of school-age children is shrinking so fast that Portland will have to close the equivalent of three or four elementary schools a year over the next decade, according to school district projections.
"I don't think we're going to become a nearly childless city like San Francisco, but the age structure is really changing," said Barry Edmonston, an urban studies professor at Portland State, who does demographic projections for the school district. "People are not turning over the houses like they used to. They're aging in place, at the same time that prices are really going up, making it hard for young families to move into the city."
Nationally, the birthrate has been dropping while the overall population is aging as life expectancy increases. The problem is not just in cities. New figures released this month showed North Dakota losing more children than any other state.
Scottsdale, Ariz., a fast-growing Phoenix suburb, lost 571 students last year. San Jose closed three schools last year and expects to close three more soon.
Between 2003 and 2004, only six states had an increase in their elementary school population, the census bureau reported in March.
In that sense, the United States is following Europe and the rest of the industrial world, where birthrates now rarely exceed the rate needed to replace the population.
"If you took immigrants out of the equation, the United States would be like the rest of Europe," said Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a public policy research organization in Washington. He is the author of "The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birth Rates Threaten World Prosperity and What To Do About It."
Mr. Longman said a decline in children not only takes away "human capital" needed to sustain an aging population, but "having fewer children really diminishes the quality of life in a city."
Most city leaders seem to agree. Even in San Francisco, where officials are preparing for another round of school closings amid a projected decline of 4,000 students in the next five years, city officials are aggressively marketing the city and its schools to young families.
But what they cannot do, especially after the failure last year of a ballot measure sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce to encourage affordable housing, is bring housing prices down.
"It's a real challenge trying to raise a kid in San Francisco," said Jim Armstrong, a father of two who is active in Little League in the city and rents a home. "It takes a degree of fortitude for a parent to stay with the city."
Other cities that have tried to reverse the family outflow have had mixed success. As mayor of Seattle for 12 years, until 1990, Charles Royer started an initiative called KidsPlace, which has been widely copied by other cities. It included marketing the city's neighborhoods to young families, building a small mix of affordable housing, and zoning and policing changes to make urban parks more child-friendly.
Mr. Royer said he was ridiculed for signs placed around town proclaiming "Seattle is a KidsPlace" and took criticism from social service agencies who thought bringing in more families would only place more demands on the limited money they had. Mr. Royer said he was bucking historic changes, and Seattle now has some of the nation's highest-priced real estate and its lowest percentage of children.
"I said things like, 'We don't want to be like San Francisco,' but in the end, I don't think we were terribly effective at stemming that tide," Mr. Royer said. "It's not so much a social problem as it is a demographic and financial problem."
Here in Portland, the city is bemoaning the demographic cycle as it unfolds before their eyes. On the day of the announcement to close Kenton Elementary School, which has anchored a north Portland neighborhood for 91 years, some parents and residents reacted as if there had been a death in the family.
"I feel heartbroken," said Mary Krogh, who had planned to enroll her 4-year-old son, Chase, in the school. "It's just a terrible loss."
The school and a tightknit community were among the things that attracted Ms. Krogh and her husband to the neighborhood seven years ago, she said.
But now the school will be shuttered, and improvements from Portland's beloved light rail line have contributed to rising real estate prices, defeating the broad goals of the mayor's effort to bring and keep young families in the city.
"Portland is a great city that attracts a lot of educated people," she said. "But the real estate is becoming outrageously expensive. And then you get wealthy singles and wealthy retirees. What's missing are kids. And that feels really sterile to me."
oh, I forgot...now, the new mantra is "smaller class size"....for the children, of course.....
If I'm not mistaken, North San Diego & South Orange counties are expensive places to live and they have a number of families not only living there, but moving there.
Sounds like they're both spoken for!
I lived in a neighborhood of single family homes "close in" in Portland (not 5 miles from the Pearl District) that had tons of kids. Nice tree lined streets, sidewalks, schools nearby .... kids out outside playing all the time, very vibrant.
I lived in a neighborhood of single family homes "close in" in Portland (not 5 miles from the Pearl District) that had tons of kids. Nice tree lined streets, sidewalks, schools nearby .... kids out outside playing all the time, very vibrant.
Old America is dying out, just like Europe is. Godless liberalism is anti-life in every way. From taking money away from the young and fertile to finance the old's pensions.. to homosexuality, to abortion etc..
These young liberal women, how can they have children when it would hurt their career advancement and change their figures?
"It's a real challenge trying to raise a kid in San Francisco,"
Believe me, it is a real challenge just trying to drive with my kids through San Francisco (if I must).
Ah, but you can't take immigrants out of the equation. New Americans are created nearly every day and they are a source of constant renewal for the country. I used to work near Golden Hall in downtown San Diego and always enjoyed seeing the long lines of people waiting to take their oath of citizenship.
I live on Bainbridge Island, which is a 35-minute ferry ride from Seattle. The average home price here is a good bit higher than in Seattle, but Seattlites are flocking here because Seattle schools, well, stink! Would you prefer to live in an expensive, child-unfriendly community like Seattle, where you have to spend extra money to give your child a descent education? Or, would you prefer moving to a child-friendly community with great schools where any extra money can be invested in a home and property? There may be a lot of relocated Seattle libs on this island, but no one can say that folks here don't cherish children. They also love their dogs for that matter.
Have you ever been to Salt Lake City? They still believe in large families.
When I visit San Francisco (have friends there; actually kind of stopped going there since I can't stand it any more) I notice there are not many children visible in many areas. Same thing when I used to live in Portland.
Pure selfishness and hedonism. Live for the moment selfish gratification, with homosexuality being the ultimate in me-centered pleasure. Of course, it certainly wouldn't be "pleasure" for those who are normal.
The author seems to think that the people moving into these trendy neighborhoods are a cross section of America, or that they stick around when they want to have kids. My wife and I lived in a neighborhood like this before having children. But we don't want to raise our kids where crime is high, gays run rampant, liberal thoughts prevail, where they'll get hit by a bus if they step out the front door alone, and where there are no neighborhood other kids. So we moved out.
Yes, I've been to Salt Lake City.
Creation is not the issue. Believe in Creationism if you please. Putting words in God's mouth is the issue here.
Please tell me where in the Bible the following quote can be found;
"Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God)."
I think you're referring to "yuppies," and that's nothing new.. and I'm often irritated by people's apparent materialism or shallowness. But the idea that not having children necessarily equates to selfishness or immaturity is not always true (or even very often true, imo.) Come to the deep south where some families don't know when to stop having kids, even when they cannot support them (or don't even seem interested in raising them).
It cuts both ways.
Creation is not the issue. Believe in Creationism if you please. Putting words in God's mouth is the issue here.
Please tell me where in the Bible the following quote can be found;
"Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God)."
Wise men still seek Him. The apostle Paul stated if something is untrue in the Bible then it would all be false. I agree with him. I believe it is all true, right on down to a 6 day, 24 hour Creation just as He stated. The Hebrew bears this out.
You don't have to believe that. It is a choice. Intelligent people DO believe that. Intelligent people can look at all we see and things we have trouble seeing - microscopic, and the evidence of Intelligent Design, God, is overwhelming. Only a fool would deny that.
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