So, when asked very recently about raising kids in the burbs v the city, I talked about my experience growing up in the burbs (hated it, especially the dependency for transportation.)
And then I proceeded to make a series of almost totally unsupported, kneejerk, anti-suburban statements, peppered with admissions of ignorance.
Is there any research on this? What about you parents, rural, suburban and urban? What do you think?
The Death and Life of Great American Cities? Free Range Kids?
Of course there’s also the problem that most of what passes for city in the United States is almost as car-dependent as pure suburbs are.
The various comments on Free Range Kids about people being ticketed is just horrible.
In retrospect discussing where I’ll be building a house, the issue of proximity to other families with kids came up. It’ll be a couple city blocks to the nearest family (although only a few houses worth in the outer suburbs where we live). The person I was talking with commented that distance might be a good thing because then I wouldn’t have all the other parents critiquing my parenting style.
city, all the way.
but that’s me.
(a major reason? only in a city do you have enough of a sample space to have enough diversity for a child to really see some variety early on. only in CERTAIN cities, probably, as well.)
the other reasons seem important too (transport being another major one).
also, you don’t want to be in a society where your child can get easily bored and turn to some of the major suburban timewasters (heavy drug use, for example), or to end up falling into a clique (much easier with less people).
that’s just my thoughts, based mostly on what people have told me about them growing up.
Having grown up in Chicago, I have to agree with the diversity & the accessibility issues. I could get to nearly anyplace I needed to go to by bike, bus, or rapid transit, including my high school, all of the big museums, & the libraries, both my local branch, the central one downtown, & one nearby suburban library. However, getting smushed by a clique of SOBs was just as much a part of life there as anywhere else, & while I never tried, it’s not as if drugs weren’t around.
I grew up in rural countryside.
It sucked. Being gay wasn’t very popular, having varying beliefs (i.e. atheist) was not looked upon kindly, and you needed a car to get anywhere.
If you’re white, christian, etc. by all means, live there. It’s very pretty.
I agree, plenty. I think it /might/ be ok to live in the rural countryside as a gay adult, but being there as a child with queer instincts sure wasn’t fun. Also, I don’t think I’d like to be there as a gay adult with children, because I don’t expect it would be much easier to be a child of gay parents (regardless of the child’s orientation/instincts) than it was to be a queer-leaning kid.
The Suburbs are DESIGNED to be about raising children.
Look who lives in the Urban Core: Older People, Singles, Gays, Students, Hipsters, Broke People (if not Gentrified), etc…
Suburbs are defined by things like “Safe” “Quiet” “Good Schools” etc…. all things about raising a family inside of a protected dome.
I grew up in the Urban Core and later the Suburbs and Countryside – The fact is you DO NOT KNOW what kind of kid you are going to produce/adopt/raise/find/kidnap in this world. Some kinds LOVE the outdoors and the freedom it represents, other kids love the cultural experiences a kid on foot can have in the city, other kids LOVE the safety and manufactured drama (GO TEAM!) of the Suburbs. It depends on the kid – and parents as well.
Knowing what I know about you I would have to say the idea spot would be in a Suburb of Salt Lake City. You’d love it. Or I might be thinking about Bizarro-universe you. Whichever.
SLC living does provide offer ample access to magic underpants.
Indeed, the best kind of underpants.
I grew up suburban.
Its fine when everyone is “bicycle age”
It kinda sucks when everyone is “car age” and it gives you very little out-of-school time with school friends if you take the bus to the magnet school 45 minutes away.
Granted, if you only went to that school because you had no “friends” at other schools, then perhaps its not the suburbia thats the issue…
…and perhaps what was so wonderful about Pittsburgh, of all places, wasn’t that it was “urban”, but that I was around a whole bunch of other people from my situation. Perhaps if I had had the same experience at “U C Irvine” or “CalTech” I might be a die-hard cookie-cutter-housing car-tied California suburb believer now.
Still, your teenage years are the time when the “urge to get out and explore and make something of yourself” (I think they call that “independence” or something) conflicts with the constrained lifestyle of someone still under parental care. Living someplace where “those with cars can get to real places, and those without are lucky if they can bicycle to a grocery store” certainly must have an effect on this natural teenage conflict. Whether its a “good” effect depends on whether you’re the sort of parent who believes in “don’t let the kids do anything too wild” or whether you’re the sort who believes in “let the teenagers explore, get out of the house, and express their independence without having to get involved with dangerous things like cars”
It really depends on the part of the city or what suburb, I think. Oak Park has public transit, for example, and is very close to the city. It feels more “urban” than some places that are actually in the city proper, like the Wildwood/Sauganash area of Chicago that isn’t close to the CTA, doesn’t have much Metra service at night, and could change its name to Niles II and nobody would be confused why. If you can raise a kid in Lincoln Park or Wildwood so they aren’t in insanely overcrowded classrooms in CPS, it’s a great place to raise a kid, but otherwise you’re probably going to have to send the kid to a private school if you want them to actually be able to get help from teachers if they need it. Then again, some suburban high schools, like Fenton in Bensenville, have serious population problems, if I understand correctly.
So…yeah. To me, it really depends on the part of the city or the suburb in question.
Growing up in the suburbs was fine for me until I got old enough that just bicyling around the neighborhood isn’t enough to keep me entertained and engaged. It also was problematic that I went to a private school and most of my friends were a 30min-1hr drive away. As a result, growing up in the suburbs was very isolating.
mmm – it’s only going to get worse in the ‘burbs as oil gets more expensive –
close to town (city centre) is best for adolescents for sure. I’m lucky to live in a city where the centre of town is also a great surf beach – which is a real plus. Lots of beach/surf culture – skaters etc etc – and a pretty cool grungy art & music scene too.
I think I’d ultimately vote for college town — Madison was great since there were so many intellectual opportunities for me, even though I was a social oddball. However, Justin and I agree that raising kids in a big city will be best for us — and he’s from a small town.
We want to have access to a ton of resources (museums, theater, groups of people interested in interesting things, etc) and feel that Chicago has sufficient green space. Also, we want to make sure the kid is surrounded by many different types of people, since we feel that the best way to teach general liberalism (in the best sense that word) is to make sure the kid sees and interacts with people who are not like them on a regular basis. (Also, I’m assuming that the kid will be able to get into one of the selective enrollment high schools, otherwise there will be Trouble with a capital T…)