Truth is, I wish we talked a lot more about making cities as kid-friendly as possible. The topic is often overlooked. That’s why it was fascinating to see Derek Thompson’s article, “The Urban Family Exodus Is a Warning For Progressives” get so much traction. He clearly touched a nerve.
Today, I give my take in this solo podcast. As a father, as someone that loves cities, and someone that is in fact deeply concerned about the trendlines, I share my observations. This one gets a little personal. Ground I cover includes:
1. How parents really feel about their kids
2. What life in American cities is really like
3. How things are different now from the historic norm in the US
4. What parents really prioritize, not what we wish them to prioritize
5. What cities can do
6. How cities *could* be amazing
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: “Why Be Friends”
Outro: “Fairweather Friend”
Episode Transcript:
Kevin K (00:01.824)
Welcome back to the Messy City podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg flying solo today, doing an episode in a way that I've done occasionally in the past, but I haven't done a little while. I've had some amazing guests. I've got some more coming up and I love talking to people other than myself primarily in this gig, but it is fun once in a while to just riff on something that's in the news or on my mind.
And that's what I'm going to do today. I do want to take a second and say thank you to all of you who are listening and following. The podcast has really grown a lot in audience the last six months. And I really appreciate everybody tuning in. And if you get a chance, please hit that like or follow button. Leave me a review on your podcast platform, especially if you're on Apple. Apple is the biggest podcast platform by far.
So if you're listening through Apple podcasts, I'd really appreciate it if you gave the show a rating. All of that stuff helps get attraction and grow the audience. And the bigger the audience, the better I will be able to be at providing you all with really good programming and interesting guests and the ability to try to help us all out as we navigate how to improve our cities, how to improve our own situation.
if you're a, a small developer or an aspiring small developer, try to become one. if you are someone who's just interested in cities and planning to do whatever you can do to make your community a better place to live and, and, help us, help us all out in our own little world. So that's the point. That's what I'm trying to do here. And, I hope you enjoy it judging by the numbers. A lot of you are enjoying it. So that's really cool. And, it's,
It's definitely a lot of fun for me. So with that, I want to talk about an article that's made the rounds a lot lately and a topic that I've seen discussed in social media and elsewhere. And it really has to do with the subject of families and big cities. And a lot of this most, the most recent flurry of discussion happened at
Kevin K (02:25.002)
as the result of an article in the Atlantic by Derek Thompson titled, The Urban Family Exodus is a Warning for Progressives. And I'm going to commit a cardinal sin here today where I'm going to talk about this topic without having read the actual article. So forgive me for that, but I will say I have read many, many articles on this topic.
And what I really want to talk about today is just kind of my own experience as a father, as a parent, and my own interaction and evolution on this issue. Because I think there's an awful lot in the context of this subject that we just don't talk very much about. Especially those of us who are in this tiny, tiny niche of
people who call themselves urbanists, who care about cities, who care about development in cities. There's an awful lot tied into this issue that overlaps with others that we've talked about here before, but I think there's some that's really specific about having kids that I'd just like to dive into. So the context really in Derek's article, I did see some of the numbers. I don't have them in front of me. You can find them.
out there, it's not hard to find. But the context was that people with children are continuing to move out of big cities. That this trend really started in the early COVID years, 2020, 2021, and has not really abated. so the article really was kind of a warning, especially to people in some of the larger
cities in the country, the places like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, et cetera, that people who have a choice, who have kids have continued to leave. And so that is why he says it's a warning. I guess I would say right off, right up front, I think this should be a concern for everybody. I don't think it should be a concern just for somebody who calls themselves a progressive. I've always had the opinion that
Kevin K (04:42.818)
Communities and cities are for everybody in every age group, every kind of background, every interest. The best kind of communities really embrace everybody. And it's a little strange to me when we say that, when we just kind of dial it down to like a political impulse. I understand why he's doing that. the reality is that most big cities are run by progressives.
And so I think he's talking to progressive policymakers. But I think this issue really should concern everybody because honestly, when you don't have children living in your city, you have to ask yourself, like, what future does your city have? This is often talked about in relation to like places that are like retirement communities. And a lot of retirement communities also go through phases and fads.
And if they don't evolve, since they're not replacing people themselves, there are no children in retirement communities. And so people aren't growing up there. What happens as people die off and those populations change? Well, the same is true of cities. If children are not growing up in cities and having, or if they're not growing up in your community and having a good feeling about it, it lowers the likelihood that they will want to be there as an adult.
And if you're not going to be there as an adult, it's going to hurt your future population as well. everything in cities is a function of time. And there is that fourth dimension that we often neglect, that things change a lot over time. And we don't think about what might happen 10, 20, 30 years down the road. But if your community doesn't have children in it, that's a big red flashing warning sign.
for what happens in the next generation. So I think this is an issue that should concern everybody. And again, I'd say right up front, I am terribly, terribly biased on this because I do have children. I have two young children, two daughters that are six and eight years old. And so I want to share, I think what might be useful for me, first of all, is to share a little bit of a personal perspective on having kids.
Kevin K (07:09.09)
And then I have some thoughts related to what's going on in terms of evaluating and understanding cities and the landscape of cities in the United States. And then also what we might do, what cities might be able to do to course correct. What can they do to turn this around so that cities can be attractive to people who do have kids and reverse that population loss. So let's just start off with the personal.
not a young person anymore. I certainly don't feel old, but I can't deny the math, but I'm not somebody who's in my 20s or 30s. And I have kids, but I came to having kids pretty late in life compared to most people. So my oldest was born when I was 45 and then my youngest when I was 47. So I'm not in...
What is it? Al Pacino world here? Is it Al Pacino that like that recently had a kid or something and he's about eight years old? I'm not in that world, but I am definitely in the category of people who had kids late in their adult life. And so I lived a long period of time without children in cities and now I'm living with children in a city environment.
and I think the thing, you know, the thing, the way I would like to talk about this first and foremost, there's so much about this that changes. You know, there's a lot of cliches about the things that change. And when you have kids and I knew all those cliches, I heard them a million times. It's really hard to fully understand that until you go through it. And, having children completely rewires your brain.
and your priorities in a lot of ways that have really surprised me as a person. And I have often found myself just like shocked at things that are different about me now that I am caring for and responsible for these two young people. Just, you know, one silly thing is just like...
Kevin K (09:29.184)
you know, my wife and I have talked about this, like anytime there is like a movie or a show on TV and there are children that are like at risk, they're abducted, they're being hurt or harmed in some way. It's like, you know, I just lose it now. And it, the emotion that that creates in me and us is, it's hard to describe. It really,
It affects me in ways that are, they seem kind of silly, but I understand and I empathize much more with the families and people in those situations than I ever would have otherwise. And so it's really kind of bizarre, but it's like an incredible way to just like make me all of a sudden choke up, you know, watching a movie, having some harm come to a small child. But I mean, the reality is,
I will tell you from my experience, you do become much more emotional when you have kids. At least in my experience, I have found a protective impulse, the desire to protect them from harm and from the world that I just wasn't sure that I had that. When I was younger, I didn't know about that, but when once you have those children in your care,
It's incredible how protective you are of just every aspect of their life. so I get why we don't want to become helicopter parents. We are not like that. But I get why people have that reaction. I get the instinct that a lot of parents have to really deeply care for every aspect of what happens in their child's life. And I would say,
If you don't have that kind of reaction, if having kids doesn't change you in some meaningful way, then you should probably take a long look in the mirror. I mean, you might be a sociopath, I'm just saying. And it should change you. because it's an incredible thing to have to care for another human being. It's an incredible joy. And there's definitely the part of me that says, God, I wish
Kevin K (11:54.036)
I had done this when I was younger and even had more kids than just the two of them because they really bring you incredible joy into your life. I would say that probably the highest highs and lowest lows come from being a parent. The moments you have them with them that are really great or fun or memorable from a good standpoint, stand out above and beyond anything else that
you I did for myself in the years before I have kids. So it really is very different and it does tend to make you think that the life you led before kids was very like self -centered and maybe selfish. And I'm not saying that as like an accusation to anybody because, I lived it. I lived it myself for a very long period of time, but it is just really different. So
having kids that you care for really does change your priorities in ways that you probably can't communicate perfectly in an article, especially if you're like a childless person and you're just trying to describe like statistics that are happening and analyze what's going on. If you can't understand the emotion of it, then you're really missing something really important. So one aspect of that
is that with small children especially, you spend an awful lot of your time and mental energy trying to come up with activities for them and trying to entertain them, trying to do these things in ways that you're not worried about their safety. mean, you're literally worried about them surviving every moment.
And so we spend a lot of time like trying to chase down those different activities. And for a lot of small kids in particular, in American cities, a lot of those places are in the suburbs. And I'll talk more about that in a little bit and the evolution of all that. But that is part of the day to day that most parents deal with is, you know, maybe you're going to a kid's play area or a play date.
Kevin K (14:21.192)
or a daycare or a swimming pool or aquatic center or whatever it is. And in American cities, most of those are in suburban locations because that's where most of the kids are. so there is this kind of challenge that you have as somebody who lives in an urban area that there isn't as much just kid -focused amenities as you would have in a lot of suburban areas.
So it's true that if you live in the suburbs, you're still driving a lot to all these places, but it is closer and there's just a lot more of it. And so, you know, as a parent, we do find ourselves getting in the car a lot and driving out to suburban locations for any number of activities. And frankly, the family oriented events and activities, there's just so much more of them that are in businesses and other things in the suburbs.
And it's just, one of the things that I think you can't really describe very well is going to, when you have small children, going to a place where you can kind of just let the kids free and roam around and play with other kids and not worry that they're going to be harmed. there's a, there is like a stress reduction on your own life that happens there. And so you're kind of always looking for those opportunities and there's just not much of that in a lot of urban areas or.
urban locations. Now I think cities have gotten better for families in my lifetime. And there are more things. So like in my city, there's something we call Science City, which is basically just like a kids play area that is in the Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, that's in the city. It's a really cool place. The kids love going there. That's an example of like a very family and kid focused activity.
And there are some people working on creating more activities nearby and adjacent to it that I think will be really cool. We obviously have parks, we have playgrounds, we have a fantastic park that is a block away from our house that the kids walk down to and it's got a playground and everything. So we've used that a lot. We've got some of those types of things. And we have a neighborhood main street that is just up the block from our house.
Kevin K (16:45.054)
And if we walk a few blocks in one direction, you know, we can hit the ice cream place and there's a taco place and there's, there's, there's some places that are, that are fun to hang out. Now, I will say in our area, most of there are some, most of those businesses are not what we would call like kid friendly places. and maybe that's a, that might be an especially American way of looking at businesses. but they aren't.
And they're generally focused on the demographic of people who live in the cities, which tends to be younger and just certain crowds of people that are not dragging their kids around. we have some of those things. It is better. But we also lack a lot. We don't have a swimming pool, for example, in our neighborhood or anywhere near us.
By contrast, both of my sisters live in suburban subdivisions in our metro that both have neighborhood pools. And they can just walk over any time when they visit their aunts and uncles and they can just go swimming all day. Granted, they pay for that. It's part of your HOA dues if you live in one of those subdivisions. But we don't even have that option in our area at all.
in our part of the city. Now, some cities are better than others. Our city is not particularly good at having those kinds of amenities. And that's really something that is very lacking, not to mention some of those kid play areas. And there's just also very little programming of events that are specifically for kids and families in the city.
Parks department is doing a little bit more of that than they used to, but, it's great. We love, we do as much of that as we can. But when you compare it to the sort of routine events that happen in a lot of our suburban jurisdictions, it just doesn't compare. and, and it's frustrating. It's frustrating for us because we wish we had a lot more of that. Cause we don't want to get in the car and drive for 20 or 30 minutes to another location. But we often find that.
Kevin K (19:07.116)
that's just kind of what we have to do. So that, I mean, that's one aspect of all this is, you know, when you are in middle -class family and you are trying to balance, you know, a lot of these needs and really care for your kids and provide them with fun things to do and go to places where you can kind of relax too, it's really important to have those things nearby. So, you know, another aspect of this
I think if you're to step back a little bit, and that's all kind of like personal experience. If I were to look at like, are the things that most normal families really care about when it comes to choosing a place to live? And I've mentioned this before, but one thing that I think almost anybody listening to this podcast would have to understand is that like,
Those of us who are in our little world here are not normal. If you are a quote unquote urbanist, you are probably not normal. You probably do not have like the same value system as the vast majority of people in your city or in our country. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just, it just is. It's just different. A lot of us put a high priority in our own life.
in living somewhere where you can walk around to some things or ride a bike to some things. And I love all that. I put a high priority in that. I wish more people did. I wish that was normative in our culture that like the idea of using your body to get around to most things in your daily life was like normal. It used to be normal in our cities. And if I were to say a little sidebar here,
one of the things that's really kind of unique about American cities and culture is that we conflate urban with big city. and by urban, mean like places where you might like walk around to things. so this is, this is different than most countries in the world where, where people small town, whether you're in a small town or a big city, most people walk around, to get around.
Kevin K (21:36.69)
And it's different from our historical legacy as well in the United States, because prior to the 1920s and the beginning of the suburban experiment or the revolution in city planning that happened at that time period, every community in our country was a walkable place. Everything that a lot of quote unquote urbanists would love was normative.
And if you don't believe me, just look at pictures and postcards from literally any community in America prior to the 1930s. And you see that they are all what we would call urban today in terms of how people actually lived. So that was our legacy and that was how our country developed for a couple of hundred years.
until we embarked on this experiment to basically destroy it all and destroy it all kind of on purpose with big money and big policy and for many decades of intentional destruction. And so we're left with this situation now where people tend to conflate like, if you mean walkable and urban, well, that's only in like the big city. And that's just not true.
that's never really been true historically. But on the ground today, that is how a lot of it feels, that you have big cities that are kind of walkable and maybe people take public transit, maybe people ride bikes. And then you have suburbs where people drive cars. And very simplistically, that's how a lot of people look at the world. And I've always been frustrated by that.
And it certainly doesn't have to be that way. But that is how a lot of people look at it. one substacker who I've talked about before here, Addison Delmastro, he does a really good job of writing about this. He kind of talks about this topic frequently on his substack, which I think is called the deleted scenes. Just the notion that small towns, as we think of them today, really are just big cities that haven't matured or
Kevin K (24:03.778)
didn't mature or grow into being bigger places, but they all have the same DNA. The little town where I went to high school, Marshall, Missouri, has this lovely courthouse square and beautiful older neighborhoods from before the 1930s. And it has the exact same DNA as like the neighborhood that I live in now. It's just that Kansas City, Missouri grew to become a big city.
Marshall, Missouri did not grow to become a big city. It kind of stagnated at a certain population and it's been more or less the same population for about a hundred years. So big cities grew and changed and a of small towns did not. And then we also had the growth of suburbia, which was a completely new way of living that was in many ways organized around needing a car to get to places. So.
So anyway, I guess that's a bit of a sidebar. It's kind of thinking about how cities are in America today. But historically, they weren't that way. So anyway, setting that aside, for most normal people in our country today, they look at the landscape and don't really think about these issues. It's just like, it is what it is. You live in America, you have a house, you have a car, you drive to places. And that is baked in to the cake.
that like that's part of the lifestyle. And so as a result, a lot of people, especially families with kids, they're not really like thinking about like urbanism or walkability as a thing necessarily for their children or for their family location. Some people do. I think there's more people that think about it now than used to. There's probably more people who think about it from the standpoint of like, it'd be cool to have like bike trails nearby.
because a lot of suburbs have done a great job of building like bike trail networks. But not many people are thinking about, you know, I want to live in a place where they have like a neighborhood main street that we can walk to with the kids. Again, I wish they would, but it's just not in the minds of most people. What is in the minds of most people, especially people who have a choice in where they want to live, not everybody has a choice, not everybody can afford to move. But for people...
Kevin K (26:29.996)
For middle class people especially who have a choice, and if you have kids, this is the reality. You're thinking about crime and safety first and foremost because you're trying to protect your children from harm. That is first and foremost in the minds of nearly every parent that I know. How do I protect them from harm? And yes, that can include, you know, there are,
can include walking and biking as a part of that, but what most people are thinking about is, I want to live somewhere where our house isn't likely to get broken into, where our car isn't likely to get stolen or carjacked, where it's less likely to run into violent crime, especially in public. Because violent crime is a reality in our society. We have a lot of it. My city is a particularly violent city.
unfortunately, and we can't ignore how prominent that is in the minds of most people who have a choice. So I always put that up there, like that's number one. If people aren't thinking about that or factoring that into, you know, why people might be leaving cities, then they're completely missing the boat. The second thing that people think about really are the quality of the schools when you're thinking about your kids. And
sure that's a loaded topic. We all know the history of public schools is fraught with a lot of different issues. But there's just simply no question that every parent is trying to get their kids into the best possible school that they can, the best one that they can afford. And by afford meaning whether it's a private school that they want to pay for or it's a public school in the place with the house that they can most afford with the best public school.
so that is a major consideration and, you know, frankly, most big cities fail in this area. Most of our big cities in the country, including my own have public school districts that are often at the bottom of the list in terms of rankings for schools in their Metro areas. you can argue with me whether you want, if you want to, about whether that's fair or not fair. It doesn't matter. All people know is.
Kevin K (28:56.65)
school, those schools bad, other schools better. And people are going to act on whatever they think is best for their kids. Because you're a really weird person, I think, if you want to experiment with your children by sending them to a school that is potentially subpar. So again, there are a lot of factors involved with why schools are better or not.
You know, in our city, we happen to have a unique network of charter schools that was started 20, 25 years ago. And so charter schools are public schools, but they each operate as their own independent school district, essentially. And our kids go to a charter school in the city that is an excellent school with some of the best academic ratings in the state of Missouri.
really great school. a foreign, it's a unique foreign language immersion school and we really like it. We're very, happy with it and we have many friends who have had their kids there and have their kids there and so it's kind of a unique situation. That was an incredible enticement. I will tell you before we had charter schools in the city as a choice, people as soon as they had it, as soon as their kids hit like elementary school age, they were out of here.
they were moving to the suburbs. And now that we have a whole selection of charter schools as an option where people don't have to pay, we have many, many more families that are choosing to stay in the city and keeping their kids in those schools. So that's an encouraging thing. That's generally been a good thing. But a lot of cities don't have that choice. A lot of parents don't have that choice.
When we lived in Savannah, Georgia, we didn't really have that choice. think there were two charter schools in the city of Savannah and they were both just unbelievably oversubscribed and very, very difficult to get into. And again, you have to ask yourself as a parent, you know, are you going to just like play a lottery game with your kid's future? And most parents are not. They're not going to if they have a choice. Again, many parents don't have a choice, but if you do have a choice,
Kevin K (31:20.694)
you're just not gonna play that game. And you'll make whatever sacrifice you need to for your kids, if it means moving, if it means moving to somewhere that's more expensive, whatever you have to do for your kids' future. So that's a big deal. The other aspect of schools, things we can't, the discussion we can't avoid, although I think a lot of people would love to avoid it, is that there is still a tremendous hangover from the COVID policies. And the schools that were closed,
the longest during COVID were almost all schools in major cities and especially schools in large school districts in inner cities. And there are many, many parents who have just not forgotten that and have not let go of it and will not let go of it. I think obviously there was plenty of evidence that
people left, a lot of people left those districts during the COVID era so they could be somewhere where their kids could be in school. And I would suspect that there is a hangover from that for a lot of people still looking to get out who are still very angry about what happened during that era, kept keeping their kids out of school for a year, some places, two years. And they want to be somewhere where they know that's not going to happen.
again or where they suspect that won't happen again. that's another aspect of the school situation that in the current era is a big deal. So again, top of the list when you have kids, crime and safety, and schools. I think the third thing after that is cost of living. And this is where the affordability discussion comes in.
You know, this has everything to do with housing affordability primarily, but it also has a little bit to do with taxes and overall cost of living. You know, I live in a city where our city has an income tax, a 1 % income tax. It's the only city in our metro area that has that. And so I get it when people don't want to be part of that.
Kevin K (33:41.068)
when they say to themselves, well, I can live somewhere else in this Metro and not pay an income tax. I can be in a better rated school district and I'm going to have lower crime. I mean, honestly, that's the logical choice. Who wouldn't? You really have to be a weirdo or like me to say we want to like live in the city when those are your basic choices. And it's funny that any of these things get framed otherwise.
Like that is the normal rational choice to make is to live somewhere that's less expensive where you get more for your money that is safer for you and your kids. So that's just the hard truth for how all these things work out that a lot of American big cities fail in those key areas compared to their suburbs. And then unfortunately what's happened over the years
is that the primary political constituencies have adjusted to all this to kind of reflect their populations. big cities tend to focus on policies that are the people who are left in those cities who like them, wealthy people, childless people, and oftentimes people who don't have a choice to move somewhere else. And then suburban cities tend to keep reinforcing and focusing on
like families and kids, oftentimes to the exclusion of attracting younger people and single people and childless people too. So they have that blind spot in a lot of suburban areas. And so there's that issue as well. I think in the minds of a lot of city and urban policymakers, what's really great for kids is just not top of mind. And so it kind of becomes like a self -licking ice cream cone.
in the policy world. And it's just an unfortunate side effect of where we are. So what can cities do? What can urban areas or major cities do about all this? Honestly, that's always a question. I've just never been the kind of person that I am satisfied with stating a problem and not trying to give.
Kevin K (36:03.458)
some concrete ideas on like what to do, what else could be done. And so I'll take a shot at a few things here. I mean, I think a lot of this is kind of going to logically follow from the other part of the conversation. But first and foremost, cities need to be serious, and I mean really, really serious about public safety and crime. And too many cities just are not. My city is not.
just flat out not serious about it right now. We have one of the worst murder rates and crime rates in the country. There is no sense of urgency on this issue from our leadership at all. There are people who care. There are people who are trying to do things. But there's no sense of urgency related to
How do we deal with this immediately and today? It's mostly like about like longer term solutions. And I'm, you know, long, I'm all for the longer term solutions. Those are great. But if you don't deal with things immediately, then you lose people. People just leave and they get fed up and they're going to move on. So if your city is in that category that it's not really serious about crime and safety, you're going to lose people and you're especially lose middle -class families with kids. That's just part of the reality.
Another thing that cities can do is try to find ways to support innovation in education. I'm going to write about this more at a future date here, but I've had long had some thoughts about ways that public school districts, especially really large ones, could be reformed. And I think there's a lot of reform needed in public school administration and education.
And if you are a logical person, you would start with the ones that are the most underperforming. And we are fortunate here in Kansas City, Missouri, that we have more choices than most with charter schools, with private schools, and a public school district. But our public school district needs to be better. There's just no other way to say it. It's got to be better. And we've got to find ways to just innovate much more quickly.
Kevin K (38:28.41)
and in more thoughtful ways than what we're doing right now in education. Or again, people will leave. It's just that simple. If the schools suck, people are going to move somewhere else. So the third area, not really all that surprising, but when we talk about cost of living is cities need to get really serious about trying to be affordable with, and to try to make their housing as affordable as possible.
I've stated this here before in this podcast, but as a refresher, I don't think that means like we need to build capital A affordable housing. That is just generally not as, that's not what I'm talking about. We're talking about housing for middle -class people generally that have kids. The path to affordability there is to do what a lot of cities have started to do, which is really reform their codes and processes.
to actually make it easier to produce new housing and produce it at scale. So whether you're talking about single family houses, townhouses, duplexes, missing middle housing, whatever it is, most cities have become really, really difficult to work in to produce new housing. And their suburban counterparts are quite easy to work in.
For somebody like me, I don't like the housing that is being produced in most of our suburbs. The standard suburban format, industrially spit out house in community. That doesn't appeal to me. But it sure would be nice if our city, if we could produce housing at the pace and ease at which it happens in a lot of suburban places. So that is something that we're seeing progress in.
We're starting to see reform in a lot of cities, but we've got a long, long ways to go to get that better. And obviously the last thing, I think this is a little more challenging, it's probably more from an entrepreneurial standpoint, but we really need more amenities for kids and families in urban places. Like if you really care about having and retaining kids and families in urban places, they've got to have those.
Kevin K (40:52.546)
amenities that families come to expect nowadays. You know, this isn't this isn't 1950 anymore where a lot of places just didn't have amenities. Now there's an expectation and if people don't have it, they're going to go where where those expectations are being met. So, you know, neighborhoods should have pools. They should have swimming pools. They should have play areas and playgrounds and park spaces.
It would be nice if there were more businesses that were more welcoming to families and kids and more like family focused businesses. So those can't be mandated. I'm not saying like those can be mandated from the top down, but it would be smart for people who care about those things to encourage them, try to create them. So I'll just like sum up here by saying that
I think the frustrating part here, and I think probably a lot of you may feel this way as well, is that a lot of our cities could be absolutely amazing for families and for kids. And they can be amazing in ways that our suburban communities cannot be and may never be able to be. By having the freedom of movement
on foot or bicycle and the free, ability to explore and be independent in a really well functioning place that was historically available for kids to be able to like actually walk to a neighborhood school or a neighborhood park or a pool. And there's just an awful lot of suburban communities that will never ever have that.
because of the built pattern that exists, which makes it virtually impossible without like radical change. The built, the physical DNA of a lot of cities is ideal for incorporating all that. But we have an awful lot of policy problems, administrative problems, and just intransigent thinking that is holding
Kevin K (43:19.57)
us back and holding our cities back. time marches on. If you are a parent and you live in a city and you haven't thought about like going somewhere else where a lot of that could be easier, then you're probably unique in that regard. I've thought about it. My wife and I have thought about it. We have had discussions about, know, we are city people. There's a lot we love about the city.
But might it just make more sense for us to live in one of the suburbs in the area? And there's a list of things we just really wouldn't have to think about or worry about very much. And we have never pulled the trigger on that. I don't know if we ever will. We really love our neighbors and our community. And we love the school that our kids are in, which really helps. That's a major.
major factor that would keep us in the city. But the other things are a real source of frustration. We absolutely worry about the crime and safety issues. They are real and extremely concerning for us. We do get frustrated with the cost of living. That is just, it's just more expensive to live in the city and we have fewer amenities.
I mean, that's just the reality. you know, is that the end of the world? No, it's not the end of the world. And we're in a pretty fortunate position compared to a lot of people. But my point is that I think that many, families, the majority of families think about things this way. They're not thinking about, boy, it would be cool if our kids could walk somewhere, you walk down the street to the neighborhood ice cream shop.
and live in sort of an urbanist paradise. You're not thinking about that. You're thinking about very basic things like the safety of your children, the education they're going to get, and how much things are costing you. And that's the part of the discussion that if we want to be honest and if we really want to make things better and fix things, we have to be aware of these and have real frank discussions about.
Kevin K (45:48.332)
That's what I have for you today. This is Kevin. Thanks again for listening to the Messy City Podcast. And please hit that like or follow button and leave me a review if you can. Send me a note. Let me know what you think. Leave a message on the Substack page. Thanks everybody. Talk to you later. Bye.
Cities and Parents: Let's Get Real About What Matters