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| DATE | 2017-01-24 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout-NYLXS] San Francisco Asks: Where Have All the Children
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Blame it on the Bag Laws
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/san-francisco-children.html
San Francisco Asks: Where Have All the Children Gone?
By THOMAS FULLERJAN. 21, 2017
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Photo
Slin Lee and Daisy Yeung in their apartment in San Francisco. “When we
imagine having kids, we think of somewhere else,” Mr. Lee said. Credit
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO — In a compact studio apartment on the fringes of the
Castro district here a young couple live with their demanding
7-year-old, whom they dote on and take everywhere: a Scottish terrier
named Olive.
Raising children is on the agenda for Daisy Yeung, a high school science
teacher, and Slin Lee, a software engineer. But just not in San Francisco.
“When we imagine having kids, we think of somewhere else,” Mr. Lee said.
“It’s starting to feel like a no-kids type of city.”
A few generations ago, before the technology boom transformed San
Francisco and sent housing costs soaring, the city was alive with
children and families. Today it has the lowest percentage of children of
any of the largest 100 cities in America, according to census data,
causing some here to raise an alarm.
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“Everybody talks about children being our future,” said Norman Yee, a
member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. “If you have no children
around, what’s our future?”
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As an urban renaissance has swept through major American cities in
recent decades, San Francisco’s population has risen to historical highs
and a forest of skyscraping condominiums has replaced tumbledown
warehouses and abandoned wharves. At the same time, the share of
children in San Francisco fell to 13 percent, low even compared with
another expensive city, New York, with 21 percent. In Chicago, 23
percent of the population is under 18 years old, which is also the
overall average across the United States.
California, which has one of the world’s 10 largest economies, recently
released data showing the lowest birthrate since the Great Depression.
As San Francisco moves toward a one-industry town with soaring costs,
the dearth of children is one more change that raises questions about
its character. Are fewer children making San Francisco more
one-dimensional and less vibrant? The answer is subjective and part of
an impassioned debate over whether a new, wealthier San Francisco can
retain the allure of the city it is replacing.
Many immigrant and other residential areas of San Francisco still have
their share of the very young and the very old. The sidewalks of some
wealthy enclaves even have stroller gridlock on weekends. But when you
walk through the growing number of neighborhoods where employees of
Google, Twitter and so many other technology companies live or work, the
sidewalks display a narrow band of humanity, as if life started at 22
and ended somewhere around 40.
“Sometimes I’ll be walking through the city and I’ll see a child and
think, ‘Hey, wait a second. What are you doing here?’” said Courtney
Nam, who works downtown at a tech start-up. “You don’t really see that
many kids.”
There is one statistic that the city’s natives have heard too many
times. San Francisco, population 865,000, has roughly the same number of
dogs as children: 120,000. In many areas of the city, pet grooming shops
seem more common than schools.
In an interview last year, Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley
investor and a co-founder of PayPal, described San Francisco as
“structurally hostile to families.”
Prohibitive housing costs are not the only reason there are relatively
few children. A public school system of uneven quality, the
attractiveness of the less-foggy suburbs to families, and the large
number of gay men and women, many of them childless, have all played
roles in the decline in the number of children, which began with white
flight from the city in the 1970s. The tech boom now reinforces the
notion that San Francisco is a place for the young, single and rich.
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“If you get to the age that you’re going to have kids in San Francisco
and you haven’t made your million — or more — you probably begin to
think you have to leave,” said Richard Florida, an expert in urban
demographics and author of “The Rise of the Creative Class.”
Mr. Florida sees a larger national trend. Jobs in America have become
more specialized and the country’s demography has become more segmented,
he says. Technology workers who move to San Francisco and Silicon Valley
anticipate long hours and know they may have to put off having families.
“It’s a statement on our age that in order to make it in our more
advanced, best and most-skilled industries you really have to
sacrifice,” Mr. Florida said. “And the sacrifice may be your family.”
In 1970, a quarter of San Francisco’s residents were children, nearly
twice the level of today. The overall demographic picture of San
Francisco is a city with more men than women — 103 for every 100 women —
and with no ethnic majority. Whites make up slightly less than half the
population, Asians about one-third and Latinos 15 percent. The black
population has markedly declined and stands around 6 percent.
A report released on Tuesday by the San Francisco Planning Department
said the building boom in the city, which for the most part has
introduced more studios and one-bedroom apartments, was unlikely to
bring in more families. For every 100 apartments in the city sold at
market rates, the San Francisco school district expects to enroll only
one additional student, the report said.
Mr. Yee, the supervisor, is urging his colleagues to hold hearings next
month on the issue of children.
“For me it’s part of the fabric of what a city should have,” he said.
“It makes us all care more.”
A few recent initiatives have sought to make the city friendlier to
families. San Francisco is the first city in the United States to
require employers to offer six weeks of fully paid leave for new
parents, a law that came into effect this month.
The city has also invested millions in upgrading parks, according to
Phil Ginsburg, the general manager of the city’s Recreation and Parks
Department.
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“We are trying to do our part to send a very strong message that San
Francisco is an awesome place for kids,” Mr. Ginsburg said. The city has
increased its offerings for summer programs, many of which were fully
enrolled last summer.
Yet even those with the means to stay find themselves looking elsewhere
when children come along.
Photo
Liz Devlin with her children, Ella and Jack. She said San Francisco was
a “phenomenal place to raise kids” but is considering a move because of
schools and the cost of living. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Liz Devlin, a senior manager at Twitter, which like other technology
companies offers generous parental leave, took 20 weeks off at full pay
when her second child, Jack, was born in 2014.
Living in a three-bedroom apartment in the Marina district, Ms. Devlin
said, she considered San Francisco a “phenomenal place to raise kids.”
But last July when the energetic Jack turned 2, she and her husband
decided it was time to leave.
“In terms of cost of living, space and schools I think it’s definitely
attractive for people to look outside the city,” said Ms. Devlin, who
moved across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County.
Those who make it work in San Francisco speak of the compromises.
Jean Covington, a San Francisco resident who works as a public defender
in Contra Costa County, said she noticed a “pilgrimage” of her friends
out of the city when children reached school age. When she decided to
stick it out, she was confronted with what she described as a
bewildering public school selection system governed by an algorithm that
determines where children in the city are placed — sometimes miles from
home.
When her daughter turned 5, Ms. Covington applied to 14 public
kindergartens, but her child ended up being placed in another. She chose
a private school instead, along with the strain on the family budget
that it entailed.
“Everyone starts off with the same dreams: ‘I’m going to make it work in
the city, and I’m going to be the family that sticks it out,’” Ms.
Covington said of her friends. “And suddenly the one bathroom in their
flat becomes two or three too few. And the school system is too daunting.”
San Francisco’s public school system has around 53,000 students, a sharp
drop from 90,000 in 1970.
The decline is a reflection both of families leaving the city and
wealthier parents sending their children to private schools. Around 30
percent of San Francisco children attend private school, the highest
rate among large American cities.
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More than 10 private schools have opened in San Francisco since 2009,
according to a tally by Elizabeth Weise, a journalist who writes a blog
on the subject.
Opinion is divided on whether having fewer children in the city is
something San Francisco should worry about.
Mr. Florida, the expert in urban demographics, said a lack of children
made a city “a little bit more of a colder or harder place.”
Mr. Lee, the software engineer, said he loved San Francisco — the
weather, the food, the friends he has made. But the city, he said, feels
somewhat detached from the life cycle.
“It’s similar to when you go to college and you are surrounded by people
who are in the same life stage or who have the same attitude about what
their priorities are,” Mr. Lee said. “That’s all you see: people who are
exactly like you.”
A version of this article appears in print on January 22, 2017, on Page
A1 of the New York edition with the headline: San Francisco Is Asking,
Where Have All the Children Gone?. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Related Coverage
The Loneliness of Being Black in San Francisco JULY 20, 2016
San Francisco Approves Fully Paid Parental Leave APRIL 5, 2016
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