Every so often, an envelope will appear in my mailbox from my friend Anne Marie. Inside, invariably, will be an intriguing article culled from The Atlantic Monthly or The New York Times or some such publication with a short note attached. I love these occasional surprises and do my best to return the favor whenever I see interesting articles.
Just the other day, she sent me an article that The New York Times had run on Portland and how Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children. The article talks about the Pearl District and how it "seems to have everything in new urban design and comfort" 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....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....Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a public policy research organization in Washington...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."
This trend is apparent not only in Portland, but also in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin and Atlanta. Walking the streets and talking to friends that live in these areas, I can validate this trend.
Just last week, the Portland School Board voted to close three schools due to declining enrollment. But there may be hope. My friend Brad and his wife Catherine were profiled in Portland Monthly magazine's March real estate issue as a young family who moved with their two young kids to a new place in northeast Portland last year. And this account of one mother's discovery of great public schools in San Francisco suggests may yet be some hope.
Comments