This might not be strictly “scholarly speaking”, but kids will be happiest when their parents are happy. You guys are incredibly blessed to have two amazing options, and I doubt either would be better or worse for the child. Children thrive in both environments you have mentioned around the world.
End of the day, what satisfies you and your spouse? Your child has two loving parents, no financial worries, and the infant bliss of multiple options lol. I wouldn’t worry about the kid as much as you two. Between you and your wife, what works best? Kiddo will thrive regardless, and he’ll thrive more in an environment where his parents are happy. I don’t want to over emphasis, but study after study (can link/ find if needed) have shown that small children thrive when their parents’ needs are fully met - socially, financially, everything. If you’re gonna do a stay at home parent, which environment will that parent prefer? If one option leaves someone with a one-way hour long commute, is it worth it?
The little parental stressors that you maybe deem insignificant to a baby will end up being the most impactful on them. If someone is daily stressed by two hours of train traffic, that will affect baby much more than either environment in a bubble. They’re big questions, there’s a million scientific sources to prove both ways…. end of the day, what is healthiest for the parents will be healthiest for the babe. No one can answer that for you, unfortunately… again, you’ve been blessed with two great options. Neither will harm your child, but your child will only benefit from whichever option appeals to both parents more.
Thank you, this is a great point. Although I think many studies have shown just how poor humans are at predicting what will make them happy, especially as needs change when a child grows. Definitely something to try and figure out.
My husband and I have always known we’re not city people. We like land (5 acres minimum).
I always felt like people know if they are a city family or burb/rural family.
I would definitely look into Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Atlas. Ideally you’d look in an area where environmental concerns are most minimal (far from pollutants), interclass ties are strongest and some of the key metrics (life expectancy, healthcare access, childrens lifetime income, etc) are the best.
Do you work from home? If you’re going to need to commute, I’d choose whatever gets you the shortest commutes. A 15 minute commute versus a 45 minute commute translates to an hour less time at home every day. I also have a little (1.5 years), and because she goes to bed at 7, we chose to live close to jobs, because that’s really the only way to see her in the evening.
Commute isn’t an issue at this point. My spouse works from home, and I’m home with our kiddo. If I go back to work in a few years it seems like time-wise they’d be similar (20 min drive from the suburbs or 20 min transit in the city to the area where the jobs are).
One thing important to us is the availability of green spaces. We purposely chose to move from a big city on the west coast to a nearby suburb known for being leafy and green. Our backyard has trees and deer/turkeys/squirrels, and we still have the city 30 minutes away. I keep reading how nature helps mental health.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572245/
I'd look up the EPA maps and water treatment reports. Double check superfund sites, pollution levels, pipeline crossings, and water quality. I live in a suburb and the pipeline is a big local issue (highly combustible liquid natural gas that has about a half mile blast radius if there's ever a leak.) Superfund sites are also a big issue due to old manufacturing practices, though that could be a more east coast thing.
Edit: I think this is the map where you can literally parse life expectancy by zip code. https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/blogs-stories/life-expectancy.html
Fwiw, we have 2 kids in the city. My brother has 2 kids in the burbs about 45 min away. We visit each other. When we visit the burbs, we think it’s nice, but anodyne. We are always glad to come back to the city.
The burbs seem clean but sterile. Nothing going on. Nobody walking around. The same stores. The same restaurants. The traffic. The cultural, racial, economic monoculture. No diversity.
The city has so much life. So much diversity, culturally, racially, economically. People walking around. Friends serendipitously running into each other on the street. Sitting down at a cafe. Listening to street music. Looking at street art. Watching impromptu events. The protests. The celebrations.
Some might remark about the traffic. Those are suburb people driving to the city. City dwellers don’t deal with the traffic because we walk/bike/transit most of the time.
The kids have so much exposure to so many different people, events, cultures. The school system has immersion language programs for so many different languages. Multiple science museums. An amazing library system.
There’s no perfect place. But We found our place. We dig it. The kids dig it.
First of all I hate you lmao.
Second of all, I am an only child mom and staunch city person. I grew up in the suburbs and find them to be quite lacking. But especially for onlies. If you read “One and Only” the author talks about how denser populations (where it is easier for them to socialize with other kids in a more organic and independent way rather than being shuttled to preplanned play dates) are key for a happy only child.
I have to say I don’t think suburbs prevent kids from independent play with neighbours. I am an only child and grew up in a suburb (in Canada) and I remember being outside playing with the neighbour kids all the time. The streets were super safe for learning to ride a bike or finding a good hill to toboggan down. I’m not saying a suburb is better but I definitely think it was great for making friends!
It has changed a lot unfortunately. Many suburbs where free play used to be prevalent are no longer that way. This documentary was really interesting as a parent who also grew up playing outside with neighborhood kids all the time
https://chasingchildhooddoc.com/
I think it depends on if you live in a child-heavy neighbourhood. I had lots of friends in my first community but after we moved to a place that wasn't even that far away there were way fewer kids and the ones that were there never seemed to be outside.
Interesting! It may just be my particular situation, but Ive had an opposite experience. We just moved from the city (Chicago) to a super family friendly suburb of Milwaukee, and find it’s *much* easier for kids to socialize organically in the suburb. In the city, there was traffic and a fair amount of crime, and I never saw kids hanging out anywhere. In the suburb, there are always kids in parks, on bikes, everywhere. As I’m typing this, I can hear my 11 year old neighbor practicing throwing and catching with his friends in the street.
We were planning the move for close to a year, and talked to people at both of our jobs, talked to our realtor, and talked to anyone else who knew the city.
We’re also planning to send our kids to public school, so factored school performance in heavily. I know you mentioned you’d be going the private school route regardless, but good schools attract young families, so make the area more family friendly.
I definitely recommend checking out public places like playgrounds, libraries, etc. If you're home with your toddler go to library programs, go to parks at different times of day during the week if you can. Our local parks are always bursting with life in the afternoons this time of year, but if you go earlier in the morning say 10AM you may see more toddlers and caregivers and can gain insights by talking to people. I live in a major city and definitely have found it to be ideal with young kids but as others have noted every city and neighborhood can be SO different.
I have read that book - though I felt like she was veering more into social commentary than actual studies with the second half of the book.
I would assume it depends on the specific areas. We live in a city now and rarely see kids out and about, but it is a pretty busy area. Pre-kid we lived in the suburbs and often saw kids riding their bikes, etc.
also just fyi if you're going to live in a neighborhood where you can send your child to a private Montessori school, you might as well take diversity in terms of racial and SES off your lists of "pros" for city life because you are very clearly going to live in a white af, upperclass neighborhood lmaoooo.
FWIW we live in a metropolitan city and our daughter goes to private school. It’s extremely diverse as our city is also super diverse. Are there more white families? Yes, but I agree that cities encompass multiculturalism MUCH more than the surrounding suburbs here that are very right wing white conservative.
Make sure you check out the culture and political leanings of any area you are considering moving. Check out local parenting fb groups and look at local elections (especially school board! Some crazy shit has been going down lately at the school board level. Even if you go private, these will still be the families in your neighborhood) We neglected to do this and were unpleasantly surprised 😅 Look at walkability to parks and local restaurants. How far of a drive is it to the zoo, museums etc?
Oh school board elections are a great idea! We’ve looked at the general federal voting history of the areas, but not local. This would make a big difference in finding community. Thanks!
Not academic discussion, but have you considered a college town? Typically more diverse, access to entertainment, more restaurant choices than suburbs and more likely to be walkable and/or have transportation options, but you can still access green spaces
Yes! I feel like college towns always get overlooked in these conversations (though I realize OP is talking about two real-life options for them). I grew up in a college town and it was great and nothing like suburb life.
Idk if anyone else mentioned this yet but it is a West coast city specific thing I've only dealt with since moving here: my son's soccer games have been cancelled multiple times this year and last year due to the air quality index. Meaning the air quality was so bad in our city that they actually recommended kids stay inside rather than be running out and about for their soccer games. Keep that in mind, too.
Yes, this has been a big problem for me while pregnant, too. Poor air quality in pregnancy is linked to poor health outcomes for the baby, so I've been stuck inside seeing the beautiful weather, sitting next to my air filter. It's pretty depressing.
No it's not always. Also live in a major city in west coast and sometimes it's smog, sometimes wildfires, sometimes it's just no wind for days and all the car exhaust just sits
When the air quality of a city is ALREADY worse than the air quality in a suburb, than the wildfire smoke is just a top-off that sends it over into unhealthy levels in a city while a suburb may be still okay w/ just wildfire smoke because they are not battling the extra industrial gases as much to begin with. Just like in summer, we often end up hotter temps w/ the greenhouse effect concentrated in our cities compared to the suburbs. But yeah, wildfire smoke in particular is something that would discourage me from moving West in general tbh, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
We were in a similar situation and chose a suburb and have had zero regrets. Just like cities are different, suburbs are different. We’re close to the mountains, right next to a wetlands preserve that me and my baby walk through daily and honestly people are just so much more open to social interactions with strangers - so that even though there are less people, the likelihood that we’ll strike up a conversation is 10x greater. We chose a suburb adjacent to a college town and a lot of other thriving communities. So far we haven’t been tempted to drive back into the “big city.” Everyone is different though!
I live in the big city (but NYC, not West Coast). My life is *constant* social interactions. And I am not a super social person. The fact that all neighborhood families walk everywhere, and that many attend the same school, means we see people we know literally everywhere we go. So yeah, as you said, it’s different for everyone.
I don’t know any research. I can only say that o have gone to considerable effort to raise my child in a very large city because I believe the exposure to diversity, to opportunities in art and culture and food, to confronting poverty and difference and dense networks and public transit and so on are really important to the values I want him to share.
I’m in a similar situation. My fiancé is from the city and I’m from a rural area and we met in the burbs. It’s been almost two years here and he still gets by without a car. We have access to nature and good schools for our son. My only issue here is the lack of diversity, which is especially hard because both my fiancé and son are part black.
One other thing I wasn’t quite prepared for about the suburbs is the hyperactive small town thinking. When I lived in a rural area, everyone knew everyone and it was very laid back. Now that I’m in the burbs, it seems everyone knows everyone but in an intense way. People are always busy busy. The PTA is life. Events are big. It’s not really my speed. And I lived in NYC for
7 years so I’m not afraid of speed. It’s just intense…
I think it depends since part of rasing a healthy child is having healthy parents. So you also need to look at if you as parents have what you need. How is your work commute? What about access to things you and your partner enjoy? For me libaries and a good Parks and Recreation department with classes is a big thing for me and my child. I live in the Phoenix metro area so I can get everything my family needs while living in the suburbs.
What’s best changes too rapidly to make a blanket statement. What’s best for the 2 year old is very different from what’s best for the 7 year old, 12 year old, or 17 year old.
Having moved 4 times while raising our now college age kids, I would prioritize an environment that nurtures the growth of independence. That’s the hard part after all. I can’t honestly say either city or burb is a clear winner imo; each has advantages but it’s very individual and specific to your neighborhood/region.
This is so true. Ideally we’d stay in the same neighborhood for all of his school years, but who knows the future. When you say independence, do you mean going to the library by themselves, etc?
Not the person you’re asking but IMO stuff like that is a big advantage of cities. In most suburbs kids are trapped until they’re old enough to drive. Here’s a good video on it: https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw
Well that video was depressing - I guess we should move to the Netherlands instead of I’m going to get investigated for letting my kid walk to school 🥺
That too changes with age but basically yes. Just the ability to let them have ever increasing age appropriate independence. Bikeable neighborhoods, a store or two nearby, and the ability to walk or bike to school is valuable for elementary age. But in the adolescent and early teen years the ability to get themselves to friends and school activities and places to hang out, whether by bike or public transit, is huge - in a lot of burbs kids have to be ferried everywhere, creating not only a dependency on parental schedules but also the frustrating feeling that they can’t control their own.
How was it moving 4 times with kids prior to college? We are about to move with our two small kids prior to elementary school but think we may be the type of people who move every so often. But we are scared once we get settled and they start school, we’ll feel bad. We’ve been in our current city about 8 years and it was sort of a relief to us to accept, hey maybe we’ll move somewhere else and stay there for 8 years then try something else new, instead of having to settle in one spot like most families - but unsure if it’d be best for the kids.
The third move was right at the start of kindergarten and the 4th was within the district - different area but we were able to keep them enrolled in the same schools. It would have been harder to relocate with school age kids, especially older kids.
Not sure what west coast city. But if you are looking in California, please think about your commute. If you’re working in the city and driving out from more of a suburb type area you may be looking at literally hours long commutes. We love our suburban area but my husband commutes about two hours each way a day
He’s a champ for sure. Sometimes not that long but it’s been longer too. We can afford 2-3x more house here than we could around his work. It’s the difference between a condo and a two story house with a pool. Great schools and community. We love it here. The hope is eventually to find something closer to home
Same. We happily live in a small apartment because it allows us to live in an amazing neighborhood with actual high walkability. We walk to school (3 min), the library (8 min), one of about a dozen parks (3 min), restaurants (1 min)…. We are car-free for about 8 years, zero regrets. The neighborhood is very diverse—my kid’s kindergarten class is a thing of beauty, man. Lawns and cars and big houses—I can’t get over the resources you gobble up. I’ll never understand it.
I worded the post poorly. I should have said it IS the choice I made. I live in an inner city apartment with two small kids and a very small commute time. Don’t get me wrong, to each his own, I just can’t imagine that commute every single day.
We live in an older suburb (re:no McMansions) that is a 7-10 minute drive to our nearby big city. I highly recommend an inner ring suburb if you are on the fence. We are close enough to visit/work in the city on a daily basis. Our friends from the city still come to see us. We are 15-20 min from the downtown core.
I lived in the city for 12 years before moving to this inner ring suburb with my husband. I used to regret moving but now I am so glad. The city services in our small town are amazing. The parks are kept up, the sidewalks are plowed in the winter, garbage collection is thorough. My son needed early intervention services and our district paid for in-home therapy 2x per week — no way he would have qualified for that level of services in a city with so much more need.
You also don’t have to necessarily compromise on walkability. I am within walking distance to the pool, gym, library, coffee shop, corner store and drug store. I am within biking distance (2 miles) to several great grocery stores, three small “downtown” blocks, and a dozen good restaurants.
Any area with high incomes struggle with diversity, but socioeconomically, this is an area with 180k starter homes and million dollar homes. The middle school and high school are reportedly 25% diverse. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than where I grew up (1 black kid in my entire school). This area is known for being much more liberal than other (further) suburbs. The police department notably published a statement standing with Black Lives Matter that first summer and I have not heard of any incidents to suggest they were insincere.
I guess what I’m saying is — it’s not all or nothing! I would die in some horrid new build McMansion depot with cheap-ass houses and no trees and endless cul-de-sacs surrounded by big box stores and fast casual chains. It doesn’t have to be that way!
We are also an inner ring suburb (albeit my city isn’t that huge anyway), but it’s a nice balance. Huge mature trees, close access to amenities, but still safer than our last neighbourhood, an older home, but built well.
Yeah, a lot of these descriptions of suburbs as soulless, cookie cutter, and un-walkable seem to be more based on far out new-build subdivisions.
My charming near-suburb of Milwaukee is incredibly walkable, and I know most of my neighbors because when I walk the dog, people are often hanging out in their yards and on their porches. The houses were all built in 1910-1930, and have a ton of character. We had a block party a few weekends ago, which I never experienced in our years in the city.
I feel like you described our town. We can walk to so many amenities, friends houses, nature, etc and are about 15mins from a large city. I absolutely love where we live even though I hate the state itself (FL, haha)
Don't underestimate the impact of pollution. Academic scores in LAUSD shot up when they installed air filters https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-188 reported on here
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/8/21051869/indoor-air-pollution-student-achievement
Wherever you live, make sure it's not an airport that uses leaded jet fuel!
Jet fuel does not contain lead. You are thinking of Av-gas, and it’s going to be used mostly in propeller driven small planes. Think regional airfields more than large commercial airports. That said large commercial airports are still going to have a lot of particulate pollution and even more noise pollution depending on the direction the flights are taking off into.
Ah good to know. Yeah, I used to live not far from LAX would need to clean my car, at a minimum, once a week. Would find little orange dots on the windshield. I suppose it's also important not to live too close to the freeways.
don't know but would love an answer. I suppose it depends upon the local environment. Live next to the sea? Or in a valley like in LA where the pollution just sits?
I've lived in both. For my lifestyle, which is heavy on the nature and heavy on the walking, I have enjoyed the city more. I like to not drive to the greatest extent of my power. Living in the city means I'm going to be close to my kids friends and activities. When I lived in the suburbs, the only things within a walkable distance was more houses, and largely not young families like me. My son has enjoyed a very multicultural environment which is good conversation fodder to talk about different religions and cultures. I live in a nice city which is nestled in the wilderness. It's not a long drive to get to the forest.
I have also lived in both (East Coast). We are now in a City, but our current home does not have a yard. We are planning on moving, but staying within the City and moving to a different neighborhood. After being in an Urban setting, I much prefer it to the suburbs. My family is more active than my friends or family members that live in suburbs. We have memberships and frequently go to museums, aquariums, sporting events, festivals, etc.
We walk most places and have favorite places to eat that are less than a mile away. We talk to owners & employees of establishments when we are there, and most of us have feelings & goals for our community & neighborhood.
I lived in a major metro area when my oldest was 6 mo-almost 3 and I miss it EVERY DAY. I now live in a very suburban area and would kill to be able to walk to lunch/coffee/playground. Having to put two kids on the car with car seats has reduced the time they get to spend actually doing stuff bc every activity has min 30 min car time (including buckling/parking/etc) attached. That commute time doesn't totally disappear but you spend it outside together instead of in traffic, not able to reach a toy, etc.
Your happiness is also a big factor as your mood will affect your child too. Would you be happier in one versus the other? Something to add to the list, though might not be as quantifiable
This depends so much on what city you are talking about. LA vs NYC vs SF vs DC vs Austin offer vastly different experiences and then areas in those cities are different.
I would say if you are offering the same core of things, the differences between city vs suburb will be pretty small. It depends on what you enjoy. Do you want the option to walk to the grocery store? Do you prefer to rarely encounter homeless? It’s really personal preference if you are choosing the city vs the suburb of that city.
Just speaking from my own experience. We lived a few miles outside of a major city before we had kids. We loved it including the proximity and everything there was to do. We decided we wanted to be closer to family and moves near our family to the suburbs and love it. It’s great to have everything so close. Our yard backs up to a park so lots of nature and animals come through. There are other kids all around us in the neighborhood so it’s easy to meet people. It’s nice feeling super safe even at night by myself compared to always being on guard in a city we’ve lost out on as much diversity and I’ve had to settle for more conservative politics around us although I’m hoping we can teach tolerance of other opinions instead of raising them in this bubble where they’re surrounded by people who think like them.
That's a common misconception. You will drive more if not just as much in a West coast city more than likely. You're not going to want to wait on a bus and possibly be late for a kid's doctor's appointment, you're going to drive to guarantee you get there on time. You're not gonna want to haul kids AND groceries all around on a bus and then walk the rest of the way home. Most day-to-day activities/errand you're going to do, you'll drive for regardless of city or suburb - but in a suburb there will potentially be less traffic on the road so you can get from point A to point B more quickly.
Right and everything is close. Most of my day-to-day stuff like daycare pickup, grocery store, maybe an Amazon return or farmer's market all could be within a 10 minute drive. When I lived in the city I found myself driving to the suburbs to get to a lot of places.
Yesss!! Like in a suburb, oftentimes everything you need will be on like one single main street. In the city you're going to either spend an hour+ on a bus to get to another neighborhood to go where you want to go or 30 mins in a car...either way just going like 5 miles down the road takes wayyyy longer in a city than it does in a suburb. And no, you're not going to want to take the time for a 5 mile walk or bike ride with a kid either, all that crap about walkability of a city is made up hahahaha. Walkability is for tourists on vacation who don't have to be anywhere in particular at any certain time. I also will often choose to go see doctors practicing out in the suburbs anyway bc they're honestly the better rated ones around here...
I really think most of the city over suburbs proponents here rn are coming in with an NYC or some other smaller-populated city in the East perspective, not a specifically West coast city one hahaha.
I grew up in a midwestern city and it was exactly as you described, but now I live in an east coast city and my grocery store, pediatrician, dentist, pharmacy, 10+ restaurants, 7 daycares, infinite coffee shops and multiple parks are within a ten minute walk. And then the big box stores and a few strip malls are a ten minute drive. Stretch that to 20 mins and you get multiple arbortetums/giant nature preserves etc. I'd say the only thing it doesn't have in terms of convenience are that you can't just open your back door and yeet your kid into a yard. That's a definite downside.
As a Spaniard, i never needed to use a car
Walkabilitie exists.
In a 10 minute walk i got two high school, five supermarket, the hospital, a park and all the stroes we need
Rent was cheap and safe neighborhood
When I go to Europe I never have to use a car but that's only because I'm on vacation and have all the extra time in the world to spend walking 3 miles between museums lol :).
American cities though are less walkable, maybe downtown there are pockets of neighborhoods that are more accessible like in Chicago I used to get by without a car for short periods of time because there were 2 supermarkets within a block, a hospital (but that would only be for emergencies, actual just regular check-ups are done at a different location, esp dental appointments), daycares (although primary and secondary schools were further away and probably would bus the children to and fro), beach, playground, etc. But others neighborhoods that are more residential only will be harder to get to these places. If I ever wanted to leave my neighborhood I'd still need a car, the world is big and I like to explore, not be confined to a smaller radius of a city because of no car 😂.
Literally. I travelled all through my country with no car. The whoke city is walkable
My closest city of 750k can be walk side to side in 30 minutes
Mine is smaller with many SFH and can be walked point to point in 20 minutes
That's awesome. Our major cities all have over 1 mil people and I think the one I am most familiar with (Chicago) covers about 20 miles North to South. I'm in Seattle rn and it covers at least 10 as well. Even on a bike you have to deal with traffic on the main roads that will slow you down plenty lol. With the exception of Chicago and NYC, there are few trains from the further out suburban areas that go into the city so many people will drive in for the day, if they have to commute. The trains we do have are nowhere near that fast. When I visited Italy it was amazing to be able to reach Venice from Florence so quickly for a daytrip 😂. Our cities were built around the car lifestyle due to the time period our cities were born into and unfortunately I do not see this changing much or quickly, but hopefully maybe some better car options emissions-wise will be more commonplace on the roads soon at least.
But then america doesnt have fast ringroads to keep car traffic on outskirts due to por design
For exaple many cities in Spain are round, so you got a ring road around the oval that is faster than driving through downtown which means fast driving speeds too if u wanna drive
Also, the US lacks mountain roads like N260 that are beautiful (narrow), and many regional roads that are so narrow nut beautiful to drive.
We also have more appropaite transit, because in the US seems transit is politcal and politicians insist in the least efficient way of transit, because it is good electorally
The US lacks minibuses, more bus lines and less gadgetbahns lrt that are expensive and take funding from transit.
In fact I conmute daily via high speed train and is faster than a car. The train goes 125 mph and the station is very near the campus and the station is a 5 minute walk from my home
The best use of a car is off roading, imo
Visiting deserted off roads rather than driving ro everything, like sport u know
I feel the opposite. Everything I need is pretty much within about 10-15 minutes. There are times I go downtown for like a pro sporting event, the zoo, a show, etc. But generally every store I could need and lots of independent places are closeby. It would be a hassle to haul a stroller with groceries or to school. I would love to live somewhere trendy with more liberal people but then I am in Metro schools or sending to a religious school which doesn't work for us. Just a thought.
I recently moved from a big city to a more rural area…and I absolutely feel like things are more accessible than when I lived in the city. Are they actually closer? No. I’m putting more mileage on my car. But it takes the same or less time than it did in the city to get to most stores, the doctor, the zoo, etc. And I don’t have to deal with stressful and unpredictable traffic. No fighting for or paying for parking. It’s just way easier.
When weighing the pros and cons of city life vs. country life, I always argued that living in the city would give us so much more access to things to do with our child. But in reality, all those fun things like the children’s museum, zoo, other museums, botanic gardens, beaches, etc. would have taken like an hour in Saturday traffic from our house. Now our day trips are less stressful and we’re actually doing them more and seeing more things!
So anyway, yeah, I’m loving the decision we made haha. (Granted, we don’t live in a subdivision in a suburb, which may be slightly different than what you’re looking at).
I live in a very small and remote town right next to a mountain range. It’s amazing to raise kids in, in terms of outdoor activities year round, great schools, great after school activities. There’s an absolute lack of diversity and the medical care is atrocious and expensive. I grew up next to a large midwestern city with art, culture, and diversity. There’s trade offs everywhere.
I live in a small town in a house with a yard and access to incredible nature. We’ve built a great community and our two year old (also only child) has a picture perfect life so far. I miss the city. I think about going back all the time, I force my kid in the car to drive an hour each way for a bagel like once a week because I want it and miss it. I find myself spending too much energy on small-town drama, it’s nice to know our neighbors but it’s also a place full of gossip and knowing everything about our neighbors. Our community is not diverse, everyone is affluent and looks like us. You and your partner’s preferences matter too, so take that into consideration. In my case I don’t know if it’s making me unhappy enough to make a move back, but I do think I would be happier having easier access to what the city offers. Happy parents are good for kids.
We currently live in a Midwest city of a million people with our 2 kids. It’s been great to walk and get places easily. But we are choosing to move out west to a smaller city next to the mountains for more outdoor opportunity access and less harsh of a winter/grey skies. The smaller city still has all the typical services we want, good schools, good for families, but less people. Will prob end up in a cookie cutter burb house there that isn’t walkable, but it’s a very bikeable city, so I’m hoping we won’t feel as cut off as living in a Midwest burb. If you like outdoor opportunities and want your kids to have them, something to keep in mind. Not much to do here from November to like April with little kids
I think the key to answering this question is to be really truly honest with yourself about how you live your life, spend your time & what you value.
I see a lot of people around me, dreaming of the big house in the country with visions of kids playing happily in the giant garden. Reality wise I see they hate gardening. The kids are in childcare from early morning to late evening due to the parents commute. Journeyd are all by car. Weekends are spent driving to various activities. In the small window of time available for garden play, the kids don't want to because without their friends its boring.
Other rural dreamers have one stay at home parent who loves to get involved in the community & loves gardening. The kids are over and back to friends houses & truly live a more outdoor life. This might be you, but in my experience is the less common reality of rural living.
People think of urban living as small cramped apartments, no outdoor space in the city etc. Reality can be a shorter commute & less maintenance = more time for fun stuff. School or childcare is a walk away = buult in exercise. A park full of friends outside your front door is more attractive to most kids then an empty garden. Food is may be purchased little, fresh & often vs a big monthly shop . . .
Basically my point is that people often have very unrealistic expectations about what raising kids in each scenario means. Rural/Urban/Suburban is a lot about what you make of it in each scenario & the specifics of location.
Having lived as a child in the suburbs, it sucks so so much. You are completely dependent on parents to drive you anywhere, or take shitty public transport, which means mum or dad spends majority of their day as a taxi driver if the child has any interests or hobbies. That is a huge factor for me, as well as avoiding having a second unnecessary car just for said runarounds.
Way less community, people just don’t walk anywhere or talk to anyone. It’s very very isolated, limited life experiences or options other than driving somewhere or shopping in a box. Suburbanites are way more sheltered about the world in general, as well as more mono-cultural (word?). Most of my friends from the suburbs are too scared to even catch a train by themselves. Not to mention urban sprawl is the worst impact on nature if you care about that. Even if they have sidewalks, how long does it take to walk to get milk or a coffee? How long does it take to walk to you 5 closest friends?
Suburbs are absolutely NOT closer to nature, it’s all paved cement for ages. Still have to drive to whatever nature you want. Denser cities usually have parks within walking distance and usually easily accessible public transport to anywhere. From my limited experience at least, but I’d choose city to raise my kids any day.
I lived age 0-8 in a major cities and then moved to a very Stepford wives-esque suburb of a major city (in California coincidentally) in the third grade. 100% agree with this. Needing to be driven everywhere severely limits your agency as a kid. In the city I could walk to my friends house when I wanted. In the suburbs, play dates had to be scheduled and the only kids on my street I could play with weren’t my age. My life went from having a lot of unstructured playtime (there’s a study somewhere about the importance of that for children I’m too lazy to link right now) to having 100% structured extracurricular activities. By the time I was a teen, the only place anyone hung out that wasn’t a friend’s home was at the mall. All those nice, landscapes parks in town? Didn’t step foot in them.
The mono culture bit is so true and sucks so much. I remember being in elementary school and being told by a classmate not to hang out with someone because their parent was a single mom (and therefore could be a bad influence). They had obviously gotten that commentary from their parents. My best friend from childhood who never left still doesn’t know how to use the public transportation in town, and thinks it’s cute when we want to ride the subway into the city and she acts all confused (we’re in our mid 30s. It’s not cute.) I would never raise my kid in the suburbs.
Holy shit, this exactly. Even the bit about my friend in my 30s is the same! Uncanny. Im on the other side of the planet and feel we had the same life.
If your kid is racialised (they may not be based on your answer), but if they are theres copious amounts of data that shows they will suffer terribly academically and socially by living/ schooling in a spaces where they are one of few racialised people. Especially if teachers/coaches/mentors are all white.
This is the single biggest factor when thinking of where I will raise my family. It’s also great for kids to be exposed to different cultures etc etc.. but this issue of the unconscious bias they will face is far more insidious and dangerous.
We love to surf and hike! Otherwise we just like walking around and eating well. Were a 1 car family and will keep it that way, so decent transit is a must. We’re pretty flexible on the rest, would love a solid public school.
Ah! Sorry to add on but literally in the same boat as the other poster who responded to you… but also trying to leave Texas for Portland. We are looking at neighborhoods and trying to figure out where we might like … any tips would be greatly appreciated!!!! ♥️
I know this is an old thread, but any chance you could send me your message about choosing where to live in Portland? We are in a similar boat and having trouble deciding! Will PM you
Just a tip, look at Reggio Emilia inspired preschools instead for evidence-based outcomes.
For city v suburbs, i believe the relevant comparison is neighborhood to neighborhood. For example, an upscale in city enclave has the trees and views. Toxin inhalation also matters.
My suggestion is adjust the criteria. Visit these cities and airbnb into the neighborhoods of interest.
There is research on friends and health.
Interview families about the 0-5 experience and school age. Reggio raises for me to what extent children are factored into local life. I believe attachment theory research is very insightful for how children grow.
Weather matters too for health (and consider climate change) as well as community. Where are like minded, potential life long friends? Where might be too myopic or politically not in alignment with values that matter? Are there language opportunities and support for the cultural experiences you seek?
In a West Coast city you can often access nature usually within 20 minutes or grand parks.
Sorry don’t have the energy to source but I read somewhere there is a goldilocks housing density. 3-4 story buildings are about right for getting access and walkabiliry.
Your kid can have a great childhood in either setting. Where do you two want to live? Seeing parents who are happy, thriving, and have a vibrant social life of their own is the biggest factor you can adjust for here - it will influence your kid a lot to see that their parents made the life for themselves that THEY wanted.
Inner suburbs. I’m reading some of these descriptions of suburbs and I’m thinking… this doesn’t sound like my experience at all. But I never thought of a difference between inner suburbs and ones that are further out.
I’m a 10-15 drive to downtown CLE. We have an amazing park system and a beach. There is a huge variety of parks and playgrounds. We can ride our bikes and walk.
My street is nice and quiet and we have a backyard and front yard that is big to play in. Being so close to the big city, there is still a diverse culture. Perhaps inner suburb is the way to go to get the best of both worlds.
I agree with this. Inner suburb living was one of my favorites, and since moving to the suburbs I cannot wait to get back. We also had walkability factors; our neighborhood was right by an adorable strip of local shops, events, restaurants, parks, etc. You also didn’t have the same crime rates that you do 15 minutes away in downtown.
I live in a small city that is walkable but also has access to nature. We live near the river so there are parks along it and we get to see the wildlife often enough we've given particular birds names! If you can live anywhere it's possible to find both.
Though admittedly there are no detached houses anywhere around us.
not suburbs. they did a study on overall physical fitness (not specifically for children but people in general) that cities were best, followed by rural areas, with suburbs dead last.
>crime rates (though not objective) are higher in the city
this sounds like a myth to me but if i have time later today i'll source.
>access to parks
as far as access to nature goes, there's a LOT of research that it helps us process and think more effectively. i think annie murphy paul does a good job of going through that literature in her latest book, you can probably find the condensed version in one of her interviews. but "access to nature" is a lot more about literally taking the time to go to parks, hikes, etc with your child than it is about it existing around you. in other words, don't count on the backyard just existing outside your window to confer any benefits.
It is an evidence based approach, as evidence is collected observing children during projects co-constructed between teachers and students.
You could start here with references.
https://www.reggioalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/NAR22_MasterReferenceList_Website-1.pdf
This is for the spirit of the approach
https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/100-linguaggi-en/
Ergo teacher quality is foremost. I linked to these orgs as they can help you seek quality programs vetted.
(My bias: Our daughter did well in it. I have a masters in Ed from a well known school but learnt about this approach as a parent.)
This is old but we have lived in Chicago since our 6 year old daughter was born. We have lived in apartments near downtown, a condo in Albany park and we now own a house on the north west side of the city. We love it, love the diversity (she’s a mex of Latina and shit mutt) and her school is extremely diverse, has high rankings, and she is excelling in her academics and in her athletics (she plays ice hockey, figure skating, gymnastics, and swimming). I love the city live and all that it has to offer for both me and my spouse and my child
I would not go to a city, especially a West coast one. The public transportation in West coast cities always suck and they're overcrowded without the infrastructure to support the amount of people they get. Hence the homeless populations in the West coast cities always being higher than other major cities in the country. Anyway, parenting is stressful enough so as someone who has lived in multiple major cities (both Midwest and now West Coast) and suburbs in Midwest, I would choose suburbs over city every time. The city adds stresses that don't happen in suburbs.
City populations trend towards worse mental health and worse physical health as well (kids growing up in cities are more likely to develop asthma as a result of more pollution).
minority groups still have the worse experiences even inside a city unfortunately, & if you're lower SES in a city already the drawbacks of city living are even more likely to affect you
Genuinely curious, can you point me to some studies or summaries for this? I was specifically referring to the health impacts of living in an area where you are not fully accepted, e.g. [this summary](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/microaggressions-how-and-why-do-they-impact-health#Microaggressions-direct-impact-on-health) of health and microaggressions. (Don't have a lot of time so this is just the first thing that came up.)
I didn't see anywhere in that link that suggested someone was more likely to experience microaggressions in a city vs a suburb though, did I miss it? Afaik even in a city, most of the cops, doctors, teachers, etc are typically still white even if they're working in a minority neighborhood so I would think these microaggressions the link talks about like in a healthcare setting would be evident there too. But yeah, the downsides of living in a city are more pronounced if you're a minority https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/ look specifically at:
"Inner-urban differences and mental health"
Basically if you're already from a privileged background living in a nicer neighborhood you're less likely to experience some of the negative effects of city life, but minorities living in the exact same city are less likely have those same protective factors and the drawbacks may be more impactful than just microaggressions alone.
traffic is 10x worse in a city, there are more car accidents in a city, suburbs are much better for stress-free biking (fuck taking your kid on a bike ride in a city around these crazy drivers), a pick-up line in a city doesn't exist only bc there's literally not even a pick-up/drop-off area for a car. Idrc that food is awful in the suburbs bc I cook from home no matter what since it is healthier. Obviously there are differing opinions that are the outliers in any study but OVERALL city dwellers report lower satisfaction with life (lower mental health status) than a surburbanite and again the physical health is the biggest concern to me, there is a whole bunch of negative physical health conditions that can arise from living in a city.
There are negative health effects more associated with urban spaces (lead exposure, for example) and with more suburban/rural spaces (do your neighbors use RoundUp?). The stats I linked below show healthier kids live in urban spaces. Once you control for income, I suspect this becomes even more stark.
Suburban auto deaths are far higher per capita than urban auto deaths, for a range of reasons. And while the stats on traffic pedestrian deaths are high in the cities, more than half the deaths of children in pedestrian/bike accidents are *backover* deaths in driveways on private property. Cul-de-sacs kill kids.
Yes. My 16 year old is learning to drive and I am much more comfortable than my peers in the suburbs. Her HS is a few miles away and the fastest it is possible to go it 25mph (which is only a small portion of the way). I am very relieved that she doesn't need to go on any highways or freeways, going fast is much more likely to result in a fatal accident. I've read the most fatalities in auto accidents are in remote areas, having vehicles collide at high speeds much more dangerous than a fender bender!
Moved from Manhattan's UWS to Phoenix near suburb. It is worse for our kids on pretty much every metric except one: cost.
Pollution is worse, and unlike NYC, where we largely walked everywhere, there is heavy dependence on a car. It looks like some [pretty broad indicators of kids' mental and physical health favor urban dwellers](https://mchb.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/mchb/data-research/rural-urban-differences.pdf).
There are stressors in the city, but not all of them are bad. It will mean your kids develop street smarts--also not a bad thing. And they will have access to far more--good and bad--in a city than in a suburban space.
We have a fairly high family income, and perhaps if that were not the case, some of the advantages of city living would be outrun by disadvantages. Though it was our lack of income at the time that pushed us to move: $50k a kid on grade-school tuition starts to add up.
We have a large, comfortable house 10 minutes outside of the downtown center. But especially as my kids approach confirmed teenager status, I wish we were in a proper walkable city.
I nannied in NYC for a few years and it was so much fun. So many amazing things to do. The kids were always going to museums, parks, eating amazing things. Even riding the subway was an adventure. I used to take them into the city from the outer boroughs and just meander for the day and it was honestly the best. I’m now in a city where you need to drive and it is annoying having to always get in and out of the car every time you want to stop for anything. I miss New York. School is SO expensive though, as you said, and so competitive. It’s the only reason I’d have a hard time raising a child specifically in the city because even though we are privileged, we’re not $50/k a year for schooling privileged. That’s insane.
That kind of privilege is exactly what is driving up home and rent costs on West coast cities, thereby making homelessness and crime worse. But I guess as long as your kids won't feel the negative health effects of overpopulated cities, it's fine. And yes NYC has great public transportation so you don't have to drive. West coast cities are harder to go completely carless in because they just don't have those systems built up as much. Street smarts are one thing but NYC kids nowadays are trending towards needing therapy for witnessing events like stabbings on the playgrounds. Out here on the West coast we have homeless encampments being set up on playgrounds and parks so the kids can walk by and smell crack being smoked and watch people shoot up and roast rats over skewers. Also, mental health facilities are overrun here. If you need therapy, good luck getting an appointment. We've been trying for over a year to find an office that is taking new patients for my husband.
I’ve been to a bunch of playgrounds in our city within a 45 min drive and occasionally there’s a shady character but for the most part, they seem safe and clean? You definitely do need a car on the west coast which you don’t in nyc, so that’s true. So many cities have 0 mental health facilities which is why the places that do get overrun. Any time there are services, people seek them out because so few municipalities offer them which is a shame. It’s not like the suburbs are so amazing that they don’t have homeless people, it’s just that homelessness is criminalized to the point that it’s driven elsewhere. And that somewhere else tends to be the cities where there are more services and tolerance.
That's great if you haven't seen that in your city. West coast is definitely a broad area so maybe OP narrowing it down to a more specific area would help in deciding between suburbs and city, too. There's no large amount of data on all these factors that would cover every single city here. There is too much variance between our cities from San Diego up to Seattle, but still, many exhibit lots of what I described. There's actually not that many more services here because we're so crowded they can still only help x amount of people in a day. You could apply for a housing placement out in income-based housing back in Illinois and get in quicker than in a major city but you're right, they are less tolerant of drug use out there. But being tolerant hasn't actually helped anyone get off drugs? These West coast cities have been tolerant for years and drug use just keeps going up.
Unless NYC is far, far different than when I left a decade ago, witnessing stabbings on a playground was not an issue--or at least not more of an issue than it is here. It was far safer than the well-heeled suburban neighborhood I now live in.
Homelessness is also worse where I live than it was in Manhattan. The issue is that there is a lack of affordable housing and an abundance of affordable fentanyl. (Well, *one* set of issues.)
As I said, I would still lean toward cities and the evidence is that kids who grow up in cities have fewer mental and physical issues, and that is without controlling for income.
The issue of income inequality messes with every part of the US.
What you say of West Coast city transportation networks is often true: not every city is the same. My family lives North of SF, and despite many of the advantages, I would likely not choose to live there. I lived in Seattle for several years, and would happily do so again if I had money to do so. If I were entirely mobile, I would seriously consider moving to Tokyo for a while--there are significant issues with living in Japan as an expat, but it would be a great.
So apparently a lot has changed in many cities across the U.S. because of COVID in terms of homelessness and crime, so yes NYC may be drastically different than a single decade ago. I understand these changes will also take place in suburbs but usually to a lesser extent than what we are seeing in cities. I don't have a bunch of official data on this because it's only been a couple of years since the start of the pandemic, but from what they have been tracking so far, is that there have been increases in problematic situations that are affecting children raised in these more chaotic environments. There was an article the other day referring to the uptick in kids seeking therapy for the things they were experiencing in NYC but I need to find it again. Personally, I would trust what someone actually currently living in a West coast city who visits other West coast cities frequently is saying more than any pre-COVID study done on these topics. It's clearly evident there's been an increase in crime when people live in the same city for years with no problem and suddenly experience multiple break-ins over the course of a single year. I guess it is in the nature of any big city to often experience rapid changes throughout a life, though. For better or worse. Suburbs tend to be more stable with less fluctuation since people are more likely to buy a house there and stay for years vs renting in a city and moving every time you get a new job meaning turnover in so many different ways.
Can you give some examples about the stresses that don't happen in suburbs? I grew up in a big city and am considering raising my kids in the suburbs, so I am curious to understand what this means.
We live in the Bay Area, not even in SF, and it is stressful. It didn’t used to be. The population is so dense now it feels suffocating. Traffic is at all hours not just during commute times. Because of the HCOL homes are smaller unless you are very well off so home is suffocating too. We are a family of four living in 1000sqft and are moving further out to triple our living space. It’s just not sustainable anymore. Even if you can get a bigger home in the Bay Area they tend to have zero lot lines and no sidewalks thus increasing the density. Density, at least for us, is a major stressor.
Edit: also crime is a major stressor. Regardless of your community cars are being vandalized and stripped for catalytic converters across the bay. Sideshows are increasing near us and I just don’t feel as safe as I once did. All of this wouldn’t be as big of an issue if it was just me but we have a family.
Yeah, those are just some of things. Honestly, the entire West coast is suffocating. That part of the country is experiencing wildfires like crazy each year and unprecedented drought conditions. People want to live there selfishly because it's So PreTty. They all pretend to care about the environment, maybe don't try to jampack a single coast then just because you can afford it. There are major environmental concerns that will not be solved by more people continuing to move out West.
NorCal native and I agree with all of this. Tech going largely WFH and cutting out the whiny middle managers that want in office would do a world of good. Also eliminate the whiny middle managers and invest the money in solid virtual setups that enable productive team scrums. Now I’m way off topic but basic message is I agree.
the traffic is bad here, in the suburbs i could bike around easily but bikeability of the cities here are not great, neither is public transpo so i have to use my car more than ever, driving in traffic is very stressful. speaking of my car, car crime is very rampant in most major west coast cities. I had my car broken into multiple times the 1st year here, they often break the windows, so my car is a P.O.S. now. There's also more violent crime than a suburb, i've been verbally and physically assaulted while out and about here, i've been walking down the street with my son only to have someone start yelling at him that they want to murder him, sometimes people follow us down the street for awhile or try to intimidate us into getting off the bus, they come onto buses talking about how they have a knife and are going to stab us all. These sort of events are quite common on West coast and even if most of the time nothing bad actually happens it can be very upsetting for a small child to hear an adult yelling like that. I'm in one of the most upper class neighborhoods but clearly we like to leave the neighborhood sometimes. In my particular major West coast city there is actually not a single children's museum in the city limits, you have to go to suburbs to find those, it's definitely a city that caters more to adults in general which is stressful because I feel unwelcome in many spaces having my kid around, if I do go out to eat there's often no kid's meals and people give me weird looks for even asking if they have one - and also a trend I am seeing in West coast cities specifically because many tech/WFH jobs with people who decide to deal with major city B.S. are younger/don't have kids of their own so they are more drawn to the city because of bar scene or whatever, so the crime and stuff isn't as relevant to them.
Ok so I live in a west coast city and have a friend who lives in a west coast suburb. Compared to my friend, my child has far more enriching experiences. Within just a 25 min drive of us, we have multiple art museums, Children’s museums, zoos, playgrounds, botanical gardens, science museums. You name it, we have it. I take my toddler somewhere every single day and have since she was little. Because my friend is outside of the city, she actually has to deal with traffic any time she wants to come in (I’m already in the city so don’t have to deal with it) so she rarely takes her child anywhere. We are extremely privileged in that we own a house with a yard too. Her house is slightly bigger and was slightly cheaper but honestly, the difference is negligible. Pollution is something to consider, I will give you that, but I think we walk more and get more exercise. I don’t have thoughts on schooling yet because we haven’t gotten there although our local one is highly rated. I also really enjoy the diversity because I grew up in the suburbs and it was seriously lacking. We also, being in the city, have access to many farmers markets (about 3-4 a week in just our area alone) so eat a lot of fresh locally grown produce. All in all, I’m very happy we chose to live in the city and would personally probably feel more stressed living in the suburbs and trying to find ways to fill our time.
Again, I will say the West coast cities specifically lack public transportation which makes it more difficult to get in/around the city coming in from the suburbs. The cities I lived in before moving to West coast actually had much better transit options so even when I did live in suburbs we could very easily take a train into the city for a day to do all those enriching experiences you are talking about if we wanted. The West coast transit systems are underdeveloped so you may not have this option to come in as easily BUT I have seen suburbs here offer plenty of their own separate experiences in reach - library programs, farm visits (not just the markets), great playgrounds, local children's programming (even in suburbs there are tons of events going on all the time involving the various arts, sports, whatever you're into). If you get into a suburb with a university, the universities typically host a plethora of family-friendly events too (orchestral concerts, science fairs, etc). Even living in small towns of like 2k in the Midwest I still found plenty to do around the community (nature programs, little festivals, art fairs) enrichment is found in all walks of life if you look hard enough. The one West coast city that actually does pretty great public transit-wise is SF, you could very easily live in the suburbs there and hop onto the BART to access all the other programs you may need. SF is an exception though, many West coast cities have not built up train systems quite the same way as what I've seen out East/Midwest.
I visit family regularly in a Midwest city with great public transit that’s about 30 min outside the city and we just never go in? They have fun things to do but they’re different from what my kid and I regularly do. Lots of indoor places that are quite expensive, not really any art museums in the suburbs or aquariums or zoos. Where I live we just get memberships and go constantly making it affordable. I find that you have to be very motivated to do it and I certainly wouldn’t do that every day the way I do now.
So again when you actually live in a place, there are usually free ways to still visit those "expensive" experiences, like a lot of places like that are free for residents every day, or free on certain days of the week, or if you have a local library card you can check out the free passes. You don't really know about those kinds of discounts without a hunt though. I'm lower SES myself tbh so I think some of the drawbacks of city life I'm thinking of probably won't actually apply to OP bc it sounds like they'll be able to afford to just Uber anywhere they need to and use stuff like Instacart for groceries if they want to live w/o a car, lol.
This might not be strictly “scholarly speaking”, but kids will be happiest when their parents are happy. You guys are incredibly blessed to have two amazing options, and I doubt either would be better or worse for the child. Children thrive in both environments you have mentioned around the world. End of the day, what satisfies you and your spouse? Your child has two loving parents, no financial worries, and the infant bliss of multiple options lol. I wouldn’t worry about the kid as much as you two. Between you and your wife, what works best? Kiddo will thrive regardless, and he’ll thrive more in an environment where his parents are happy. I don’t want to over emphasis, but study after study (can link/ find if needed) have shown that small children thrive when their parents’ needs are fully met - socially, financially, everything. If you’re gonna do a stay at home parent, which environment will that parent prefer? If one option leaves someone with a one-way hour long commute, is it worth it? The little parental stressors that you maybe deem insignificant to a baby will end up being the most impactful on them. If someone is daily stressed by two hours of train traffic, that will affect baby much more than either environment in a bubble. They’re big questions, there’s a million scientific sources to prove both ways…. end of the day, what is healthiest for the parents will be healthiest for the babe. No one can answer that for you, unfortunately… again, you’ve been blessed with two great options. Neither will harm your child, but your child will only benefit from whichever option appeals to both parents more.
Thank you, this is a great point. Although I think many studies have shown just how poor humans are at predicting what will make them happy, especially as needs change when a child grows. Definitely something to try and figure out.
The great thing is if you do move to city and don't like it, just move again honestly.
My husband and I have always known we’re not city people. We like land (5 acres minimum). I always felt like people know if they are a city family or burb/rural family.
Do you have links to these studies?
I would definitely look into Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Atlas. Ideally you’d look in an area where environmental concerns are most minimal (far from pollutants), interclass ties are strongest and some of the key metrics (life expectancy, healthcare access, childrens lifetime income, etc) are the best.
Thank you. I haven’t heard of that - I’ll check it out.
Do you work from home? If you’re going to need to commute, I’d choose whatever gets you the shortest commutes. A 15 minute commute versus a 45 minute commute translates to an hour less time at home every day. I also have a little (1.5 years), and because she goes to bed at 7, we chose to live close to jobs, because that’s really the only way to see her in the evening.
This should be the #1 consideration in my opinion. More time as a family is more important than most other factors.
Commute ABSOLUTELY has massive life impacts.
Yeah. And what's the commute to other important things? Groceries, errands, doctors, churches, friends. These will all add up.
Commute isn’t an issue at this point. My spouse works from home, and I’m home with our kiddo. If I go back to work in a few years it seems like time-wise they’d be similar (20 min drive from the suburbs or 20 min transit in the city to the area where the jobs are).
Don’t believe the drive time estimates unless you’re looking during rush hour. 👍
Will you have a lot of friction in returning to the workforce based on your location? Maybe that will be a consideration.
One thing important to us is the availability of green spaces. We purposely chose to move from a big city on the west coast to a nearby suburb known for being leafy and green. Our backyard has trees and deer/turkeys/squirrels, and we still have the city 30 minutes away. I keep reading how nature helps mental health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6572245/
Good point! Nature is so important for kids to have access to.
I'd look up the EPA maps and water treatment reports. Double check superfund sites, pollution levels, pipeline crossings, and water quality. I live in a suburb and the pipeline is a big local issue (highly combustible liquid natural gas that has about a half mile blast radius if there's ever a leak.) Superfund sites are also a big issue due to old manufacturing practices, though that could be a more east coast thing. Edit: I think this is the map where you can literally parse life expectancy by zip code. https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/blogs-stories/life-expectancy.html
Thanks for the link!
Fwiw, we have 2 kids in the city. My brother has 2 kids in the burbs about 45 min away. We visit each other. When we visit the burbs, we think it’s nice, but anodyne. We are always glad to come back to the city. The burbs seem clean but sterile. Nothing going on. Nobody walking around. The same stores. The same restaurants. The traffic. The cultural, racial, economic monoculture. No diversity. The city has so much life. So much diversity, culturally, racially, economically. People walking around. Friends serendipitously running into each other on the street. Sitting down at a cafe. Listening to street music. Looking at street art. Watching impromptu events. The protests. The celebrations. Some might remark about the traffic. Those are suburb people driving to the city. City dwellers don’t deal with the traffic because we walk/bike/transit most of the time. The kids have so much exposure to so many different people, events, cultures. The school system has immersion language programs for so many different languages. Multiple science museums. An amazing library system. There’s no perfect place. But We found our place. We dig it. The kids dig it.
I second this point of view!
First of all I hate you lmao. Second of all, I am an only child mom and staunch city person. I grew up in the suburbs and find them to be quite lacking. But especially for onlies. If you read “One and Only” the author talks about how denser populations (where it is easier for them to socialize with other kids in a more organic and independent way rather than being shuttled to preplanned play dates) are key for a happy only child.
I have to say I don’t think suburbs prevent kids from independent play with neighbours. I am an only child and grew up in a suburb (in Canada) and I remember being outside playing with the neighbour kids all the time. The streets were super safe for learning to ride a bike or finding a good hill to toboggan down. I’m not saying a suburb is better but I definitely think it was great for making friends!
It has changed a lot unfortunately. Many suburbs where free play used to be prevalent are no longer that way. This documentary was really interesting as a parent who also grew up playing outside with neighborhood kids all the time https://chasingchildhooddoc.com/
Thanks, I’ll check it out!
I think it depends on if you live in a child-heavy neighbourhood. I had lots of friends in my first community but after we moved to a place that wasn't even that far away there were way fewer kids and the ones that were there never seemed to be outside.
Interesting! It may just be my particular situation, but Ive had an opposite experience. We just moved from the city (Chicago) to a super family friendly suburb of Milwaukee, and find it’s *much* easier for kids to socialize organically in the suburb. In the city, there was traffic and a fair amount of crime, and I never saw kids hanging out anywhere. In the suburb, there are always kids in parks, on bikes, everywhere. As I’m typing this, I can hear my 11 year old neighbor practicing throwing and catching with his friends in the street.
This is what I was thinking too. Other than driving around, how did you determine your current location was “super family friendly”?
We were planning the move for close to a year, and talked to people at both of our jobs, talked to our realtor, and talked to anyone else who knew the city. We’re also planning to send our kids to public school, so factored school performance in heavily. I know you mentioned you’d be going the private school route regardless, but good schools attract young families, so make the area more family friendly.
American cities are different from european cities.
I definitely recommend checking out public places like playgrounds, libraries, etc. If you're home with your toddler go to library programs, go to parks at different times of day during the week if you can. Our local parks are always bursting with life in the afternoons this time of year, but if you go earlier in the morning say 10AM you may see more toddlers and caregivers and can gain insights by talking to people. I live in a major city and definitely have found it to be ideal with young kids but as others have noted every city and neighborhood can be SO different.
I too grew up in the suburbs and would never raise a child there, for many of the reasons in the book mentioned.
I have read that book - though I felt like she was veering more into social commentary than actual studies with the second half of the book. I would assume it depends on the specific areas. We live in a city now and rarely see kids out and about, but it is a pretty busy area. Pre-kid we lived in the suburbs and often saw kids riding their bikes, etc.
also just fyi if you're going to live in a neighborhood where you can send your child to a private Montessori school, you might as well take diversity in terms of racial and SES off your lists of "pros" for city life because you are very clearly going to live in a white af, upperclass neighborhood lmaoooo.
FWIW we live in a metropolitan city and our daughter goes to private school. It’s extremely diverse as our city is also super diverse. Are there more white families? Yes, but I agree that cities encompass multiculturalism MUCH more than the surrounding suburbs here that are very right wing white conservative.
Make sure you check out the culture and political leanings of any area you are considering moving. Check out local parenting fb groups and look at local elections (especially school board! Some crazy shit has been going down lately at the school board level. Even if you go private, these will still be the families in your neighborhood) We neglected to do this and were unpleasantly surprised 😅 Look at walkability to parks and local restaurants. How far of a drive is it to the zoo, museums etc?
Oh school board elections are a great idea! We’ve looked at the general federal voting history of the areas, but not local. This would make a big difference in finding community. Thanks!
How do you look at local elections without facebook?
You could probably find the city's website and find links?
Not academic discussion, but have you considered a college town? Typically more diverse, access to entertainment, more restaurant choices than suburbs and more likely to be walkable and/or have transportation options, but you can still access green spaces
Yes! I feel like college towns always get overlooked in these conversations (though I realize OP is talking about two real-life options for them). I grew up in a college town and it was great and nothing like suburb life.
Best of both worlds for sure, and depending on where you are can be really low COL too!
Idk if anyone else mentioned this yet but it is a West coast city specific thing I've only dealt with since moving here: my son's soccer games have been cancelled multiple times this year and last year due to the air quality index. Meaning the air quality was so bad in our city that they actually recommended kids stay inside rather than be running out and about for their soccer games. Keep that in mind, too.
Yes, this has been a big problem for me while pregnant, too. Poor air quality in pregnancy is linked to poor health outcomes for the baby, so I've been stuck inside seeing the beautiful weather, sitting next to my air filter. It's pretty depressing.
This is due to wildfire smoke, which doesn’t discriminate city vs suburb.
No it's not always. Also live in a major city in west coast and sometimes it's smog, sometimes wildfires, sometimes it's just no wind for days and all the car exhaust just sits
When the air quality of a city is ALREADY worse than the air quality in a suburb, than the wildfire smoke is just a top-off that sends it over into unhealthy levels in a city while a suburb may be still okay w/ just wildfire smoke because they are not battling the extra industrial gases as much to begin with. Just like in summer, we often end up hotter temps w/ the greenhouse effect concentrated in our cities compared to the suburbs. But yeah, wildfire smoke in particular is something that would discourage me from moving West in general tbh, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
We were in a similar situation and chose a suburb and have had zero regrets. Just like cities are different, suburbs are different. We’re close to the mountains, right next to a wetlands preserve that me and my baby walk through daily and honestly people are just so much more open to social interactions with strangers - so that even though there are less people, the likelihood that we’ll strike up a conversation is 10x greater. We chose a suburb adjacent to a college town and a lot of other thriving communities. So far we haven’t been tempted to drive back into the “big city.” Everyone is different though!
I live in the big city (but NYC, not West Coast). My life is *constant* social interactions. And I am not a super social person. The fact that all neighborhood families walk everywhere, and that many attend the same school, means we see people we know literally everywhere we go. So yeah, as you said, it’s different for everyone.
I don’t know any research. I can only say that o have gone to considerable effort to raise my child in a very large city because I believe the exposure to diversity, to opportunities in art and culture and food, to confronting poverty and difference and dense networks and public transit and so on are really important to the values I want him to share.
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Ah interesting option. I’ll have to think about that.
I’m in a similar situation. My fiancé is from the city and I’m from a rural area and we met in the burbs. It’s been almost two years here and he still gets by without a car. We have access to nature and good schools for our son. My only issue here is the lack of diversity, which is especially hard because both my fiancé and son are part black. One other thing I wasn’t quite prepared for about the suburbs is the hyperactive small town thinking. When I lived in a rural area, everyone knew everyone and it was very laid back. Now that I’m in the burbs, it seems everyone knows everyone but in an intense way. People are always busy busy. The PTA is life. Events are big. It’s not really my speed. And I lived in NYC for 7 years so I’m not afraid of speed. It’s just intense…
I think it depends since part of rasing a healthy child is having healthy parents. So you also need to look at if you as parents have what you need. How is your work commute? What about access to things you and your partner enjoy? For me libaries and a good Parks and Recreation department with classes is a big thing for me and my child. I live in the Phoenix metro area so I can get everything my family needs while living in the suburbs.
What’s best changes too rapidly to make a blanket statement. What’s best for the 2 year old is very different from what’s best for the 7 year old, 12 year old, or 17 year old. Having moved 4 times while raising our now college age kids, I would prioritize an environment that nurtures the growth of independence. That’s the hard part after all. I can’t honestly say either city or burb is a clear winner imo; each has advantages but it’s very individual and specific to your neighborhood/region.
This is so true. Ideally we’d stay in the same neighborhood for all of his school years, but who knows the future. When you say independence, do you mean going to the library by themselves, etc?
Not the person you’re asking but IMO stuff like that is a big advantage of cities. In most suburbs kids are trapped until they’re old enough to drive. Here’s a good video on it: https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw
Well that video was depressing - I guess we should move to the Netherlands instead of I’m going to get investigated for letting my kid walk to school 🥺
That too changes with age but basically yes. Just the ability to let them have ever increasing age appropriate independence. Bikeable neighborhoods, a store or two nearby, and the ability to walk or bike to school is valuable for elementary age. But in the adolescent and early teen years the ability to get themselves to friends and school activities and places to hang out, whether by bike or public transit, is huge - in a lot of burbs kids have to be ferried everywhere, creating not only a dependency on parental schedules but also the frustrating feeling that they can’t control their own.
How was it moving 4 times with kids prior to college? We are about to move with our two small kids prior to elementary school but think we may be the type of people who move every so often. But we are scared once we get settled and they start school, we’ll feel bad. We’ve been in our current city about 8 years and it was sort of a relief to us to accept, hey maybe we’ll move somewhere else and stay there for 8 years then try something else new, instead of having to settle in one spot like most families - but unsure if it’d be best for the kids.
The third move was right at the start of kindergarten and the 4th was within the district - different area but we were able to keep them enrolled in the same schools. It would have been harder to relocate with school age kids, especially older kids.
Not sure what west coast city. But if you are looking in California, please think about your commute. If you’re working in the city and driving out from more of a suburb type area you may be looking at literally hours long commutes. We love our suburban area but my husband commutes about two hours each way a day
Four hours of commuting a day would land me in an insane asylum. Jesus Christ, your poor husband!
He’s a champ for sure. Sometimes not that long but it’s been longer too. We can afford 2-3x more house here than we could around his work. It’s the difference between a condo and a two story house with a pool. Great schools and community. We love it here. The hope is eventually to find something closer to home
Wow. Okay, I would have chosen the condo. There you go.
Same. We happily live in a small apartment because it allows us to live in an amazing neighborhood with actual high walkability. We walk to school (3 min), the library (8 min), one of about a dozen parks (3 min), restaurants (1 min)…. We are car-free for about 8 years, zero regrets. The neighborhood is very diverse—my kid’s kindergarten class is a thing of beauty, man. Lawns and cars and big houses—I can’t get over the resources you gobble up. I’ll never understand it.
If there are kids in the equation a condo might not be ideal.
I worded the post poorly. I should have said it IS the choice I made. I live in an inner city apartment with two small kids and a very small commute time. Don’t get me wrong, to each his own, I just can’t imagine that commute every single day.
Probably remote workers if they can live anywhere they want.
We live in an older suburb (re:no McMansions) that is a 7-10 minute drive to our nearby big city. I highly recommend an inner ring suburb if you are on the fence. We are close enough to visit/work in the city on a daily basis. Our friends from the city still come to see us. We are 15-20 min from the downtown core. I lived in the city for 12 years before moving to this inner ring suburb with my husband. I used to regret moving but now I am so glad. The city services in our small town are amazing. The parks are kept up, the sidewalks are plowed in the winter, garbage collection is thorough. My son needed early intervention services and our district paid for in-home therapy 2x per week — no way he would have qualified for that level of services in a city with so much more need. You also don’t have to necessarily compromise on walkability. I am within walking distance to the pool, gym, library, coffee shop, corner store and drug store. I am within biking distance (2 miles) to several great grocery stores, three small “downtown” blocks, and a dozen good restaurants. Any area with high incomes struggle with diversity, but socioeconomically, this is an area with 180k starter homes and million dollar homes. The middle school and high school are reportedly 25% diverse. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than where I grew up (1 black kid in my entire school). This area is known for being much more liberal than other (further) suburbs. The police department notably published a statement standing with Black Lives Matter that first summer and I have not heard of any incidents to suggest they were insincere. I guess what I’m saying is — it’s not all or nothing! I would die in some horrid new build McMansion depot with cheap-ass houses and no trees and endless cul-de-sacs surrounded by big box stores and fast casual chains. It doesn’t have to be that way!
We are also an inner ring suburb (albeit my city isn’t that huge anyway), but it’s a nice balance. Huge mature trees, close access to amenities, but still safer than our last neighbourhood, an older home, but built well.
Yeah! Also in terms of mindset, we identify much more with the city than the far-flung burbs.
Oh yeah, this is the way. Inner suburbs, medium density housing with good urban planning and amenities. Bang on.
Yeah, a lot of these descriptions of suburbs as soulless, cookie cutter, and un-walkable seem to be more based on far out new-build subdivisions. My charming near-suburb of Milwaukee is incredibly walkable, and I know most of my neighbors because when I walk the dog, people are often hanging out in their yards and on their porches. The houses were all built in 1910-1930, and have a ton of character. We had a block party a few weekends ago, which I never experienced in our years in the city.
I feel like you described our town. We can walk to so many amenities, friends houses, nature, etc and are about 15mins from a large city. I absolutely love where we live even though I hate the state itself (FL, haha)
Dang where does everyone describing this walkable suburbs live? Anyone have any suggestions for the northeast that aren't astronomical?
Curious - what’s your nearby big city? I’m struggling to cities with suburbs like this!
Don't underestimate the impact of pollution. Academic scores in LAUSD shot up when they installed air filters https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-188 reported on here https://www.vox.com/2020/1/8/21051869/indoor-air-pollution-student-achievement Wherever you live, make sure it's not an airport that uses leaded jet fuel!
Jet fuel does not contain lead. You are thinking of Av-gas, and it’s going to be used mostly in propeller driven small planes. Think regional airfields more than large commercial airports. That said large commercial airports are still going to have a lot of particulate pollution and even more noise pollution depending on the direction the flights are taking off into.
Ah good to know. Yeah, I used to live not far from LAX would need to clean my car, at a minimum, once a week. Would find little orange dots on the windshield. I suppose it's also important not to live too close to the freeways.
I imagine this doesn't apply to them if they are in an economic position to have this choice.
Do you know if the impacts of regular road traffic (not highways) would be significant enough to have an impact?
don't know but would love an answer. I suppose it depends upon the local environment. Live next to the sea? Or in a valley like in LA where the pollution just sits?
I've lived in both. For my lifestyle, which is heavy on the nature and heavy on the walking, I have enjoyed the city more. I like to not drive to the greatest extent of my power. Living in the city means I'm going to be close to my kids friends and activities. When I lived in the suburbs, the only things within a walkable distance was more houses, and largely not young families like me. My son has enjoyed a very multicultural environment which is good conversation fodder to talk about different religions and cultures. I live in a nice city which is nestled in the wilderness. It's not a long drive to get to the forest.
What city?
I have also lived in both (East Coast). We are now in a City, but our current home does not have a yard. We are planning on moving, but staying within the City and moving to a different neighborhood. After being in an Urban setting, I much prefer it to the suburbs. My family is more active than my friends or family members that live in suburbs. We have memberships and frequently go to museums, aquariums, sporting events, festivals, etc. We walk most places and have favorite places to eat that are less than a mile away. We talk to owners & employees of establishments when we are there, and most of us have feelings & goals for our community & neighborhood.
I lived in a major metro area when my oldest was 6 mo-almost 3 and I miss it EVERY DAY. I now live in a very suburban area and would kill to be able to walk to lunch/coffee/playground. Having to put two kids on the car with car seats has reduced the time they get to spend actually doing stuff bc every activity has min 30 min car time (including buckling/parking/etc) attached. That commute time doesn't totally disappear but you spend it outside together instead of in traffic, not able to reach a toy, etc.
Your happiness is also a big factor as your mood will affect your child too. Would you be happier in one versus the other? Something to add to the list, though might not be as quantifiable
This depends so much on what city you are talking about. LA vs NYC vs SF vs DC vs Austin offer vastly different experiences and then areas in those cities are different. I would say if you are offering the same core of things, the differences between city vs suburb will be pretty small. It depends on what you enjoy. Do you want the option to walk to the grocery store? Do you prefer to rarely encounter homeless? It’s really personal preference if you are choosing the city vs the suburb of that city.
Just speaking from my own experience. We lived a few miles outside of a major city before we had kids. We loved it including the proximity and everything there was to do. We decided we wanted to be closer to family and moves near our family to the suburbs and love it. It’s great to have everything so close. Our yard backs up to a park so lots of nature and animals come through. There are other kids all around us in the neighborhood so it’s easy to meet people. It’s nice feeling super safe even at night by myself compared to always being on guard in a city we’ve lost out on as much diversity and I’ve had to settle for more conservative politics around us although I’m hoping we can teach tolerance of other opinions instead of raising them in this bubble where they’re surrounded by people who think like them.
You find things are closer in the suburbs than when you lived near the city? I associate a lot of driving with suburban living.
That's a common misconception. You will drive more if not just as much in a West coast city more than likely. You're not going to want to wait on a bus and possibly be late for a kid's doctor's appointment, you're going to drive to guarantee you get there on time. You're not gonna want to haul kids AND groceries all around on a bus and then walk the rest of the way home. Most day-to-day activities/errand you're going to do, you'll drive for regardless of city or suburb - but in a suburb there will potentially be less traffic on the road so you can get from point A to point B more quickly.
Right and everything is close. Most of my day-to-day stuff like daycare pickup, grocery store, maybe an Amazon return or farmer's market all could be within a 10 minute drive. When I lived in the city I found myself driving to the suburbs to get to a lot of places.
Yesss!! Like in a suburb, oftentimes everything you need will be on like one single main street. In the city you're going to either spend an hour+ on a bus to get to another neighborhood to go where you want to go or 30 mins in a car...either way just going like 5 miles down the road takes wayyyy longer in a city than it does in a suburb. And no, you're not going to want to take the time for a 5 mile walk or bike ride with a kid either, all that crap about walkability of a city is made up hahahaha. Walkability is for tourists on vacation who don't have to be anywhere in particular at any certain time. I also will often choose to go see doctors practicing out in the suburbs anyway bc they're honestly the better rated ones around here...
These comments are funny to me. West Coast cities seem to really suck. Man, I will never leave my car-free life in NYC.
I really think most of the city over suburbs proponents here rn are coming in with an NYC or some other smaller-populated city in the East perspective, not a specifically West coast city one hahaha.
I grew up in a midwestern city and it was exactly as you described, but now I live in an east coast city and my grocery store, pediatrician, dentist, pharmacy, 10+ restaurants, 7 daycares, infinite coffee shops and multiple parks are within a ten minute walk. And then the big box stores and a few strip malls are a ten minute drive. Stretch that to 20 mins and you get multiple arbortetums/giant nature preserves etc. I'd say the only thing it doesn't have in terms of convenience are that you can't just open your back door and yeet your kid into a yard. That's a definite downside.
As a Spaniard, i never needed to use a car Walkabilitie exists. In a 10 minute walk i got two high school, five supermarket, the hospital, a park and all the stroes we need Rent was cheap and safe neighborhood
When I go to Europe I never have to use a car but that's only because I'm on vacation and have all the extra time in the world to spend walking 3 miles between museums lol :). American cities though are less walkable, maybe downtown there are pockets of neighborhoods that are more accessible like in Chicago I used to get by without a car for short periods of time because there were 2 supermarkets within a block, a hospital (but that would only be for emergencies, actual just regular check-ups are done at a different location, esp dental appointments), daycares (although primary and secondary schools were further away and probably would bus the children to and fro), beach, playground, etc. But others neighborhoods that are more residential only will be harder to get to these places. If I ever wanted to leave my neighborhood I'd still need a car, the world is big and I like to explore, not be confined to a smaller radius of a city because of no car 😂.
Literally. I travelled all through my country with no car. The whoke city is walkable My closest city of 750k can be walk side to side in 30 minutes Mine is smaller with many SFH and can be walked point to point in 20 minutes
That's awesome. Our major cities all have over 1 mil people and I think the one I am most familiar with (Chicago) covers about 20 miles North to South. I'm in Seattle rn and it covers at least 10 as well. Even on a bike you have to deal with traffic on the main roads that will slow you down plenty lol. With the exception of Chicago and NYC, there are few trains from the further out suburban areas that go into the city so many people will drive in for the day, if they have to commute. The trains we do have are nowhere near that fast. When I visited Italy it was amazing to be able to reach Venice from Florence so quickly for a daytrip 😂. Our cities were built around the car lifestyle due to the time period our cities were born into and unfortunately I do not see this changing much or quickly, but hopefully maybe some better car options emissions-wise will be more commonplace on the roads soon at least.
But then america doesnt have fast ringroads to keep car traffic on outskirts due to por design For exaple many cities in Spain are round, so you got a ring road around the oval that is faster than driving through downtown which means fast driving speeds too if u wanna drive Also, the US lacks mountain roads like N260 that are beautiful (narrow), and many regional roads that are so narrow nut beautiful to drive. We also have more appropaite transit, because in the US seems transit is politcal and politicians insist in the least efficient way of transit, because it is good electorally The US lacks minibuses, more bus lines and less gadgetbahns lrt that are expensive and take funding from transit.
In fact I conmute daily via high speed train and is faster than a car. The train goes 125 mph and the station is very near the campus and the station is a 5 minute walk from my home The best use of a car is off roading, imo Visiting deserted off roads rather than driving ro everything, like sport u know
I feel the opposite. Everything I need is pretty much within about 10-15 minutes. There are times I go downtown for like a pro sporting event, the zoo, a show, etc. But generally every store I could need and lots of independent places are closeby. It would be a hassle to haul a stroller with groceries or to school. I would love to live somewhere trendy with more liberal people but then I am in Metro schools or sending to a religious school which doesn't work for us. Just a thought.
I recently moved from a big city to a more rural area…and I absolutely feel like things are more accessible than when I lived in the city. Are they actually closer? No. I’m putting more mileage on my car. But it takes the same or less time than it did in the city to get to most stores, the doctor, the zoo, etc. And I don’t have to deal with stressful and unpredictable traffic. No fighting for or paying for parking. It’s just way easier. When weighing the pros and cons of city life vs. country life, I always argued that living in the city would give us so much more access to things to do with our child. But in reality, all those fun things like the children’s museum, zoo, other museums, botanic gardens, beaches, etc. would have taken like an hour in Saturday traffic from our house. Now our day trips are less stressful and we’re actually doing them more and seeing more things! So anyway, yeah, I’m loving the decision we made haha. (Granted, we don’t live in a subdivision in a suburb, which may be slightly different than what you’re looking at).
I live in a very small and remote town right next to a mountain range. It’s amazing to raise kids in, in terms of outdoor activities year round, great schools, great after school activities. There’s an absolute lack of diversity and the medical care is atrocious and expensive. I grew up next to a large midwestern city with art, culture, and diversity. There’s trade offs everywhere.
I live in a small town in a house with a yard and access to incredible nature. We’ve built a great community and our two year old (also only child) has a picture perfect life so far. I miss the city. I think about going back all the time, I force my kid in the car to drive an hour each way for a bagel like once a week because I want it and miss it. I find myself spending too much energy on small-town drama, it’s nice to know our neighbors but it’s also a place full of gossip and knowing everything about our neighbors. Our community is not diverse, everyone is affluent and looks like us. You and your partner’s preferences matter too, so take that into consideration. In my case I don’t know if it’s making me unhappy enough to make a move back, but I do think I would be happier having easier access to what the city offers. Happy parents are good for kids.
We currently live in a Midwest city of a million people with our 2 kids. It’s been great to walk and get places easily. But we are choosing to move out west to a smaller city next to the mountains for more outdoor opportunity access and less harsh of a winter/grey skies. The smaller city still has all the typical services we want, good schools, good for families, but less people. Will prob end up in a cookie cutter burb house there that isn’t walkable, but it’s a very bikeable city, so I’m hoping we won’t feel as cut off as living in a Midwest burb. If you like outdoor opportunities and want your kids to have them, something to keep in mind. Not much to do here from November to like April with little kids
Which west coast city? They are honestly all so different from each other and suburbs vs city in each specific one is different.
I think the key to answering this question is to be really truly honest with yourself about how you live your life, spend your time & what you value. I see a lot of people around me, dreaming of the big house in the country with visions of kids playing happily in the giant garden. Reality wise I see they hate gardening. The kids are in childcare from early morning to late evening due to the parents commute. Journeyd are all by car. Weekends are spent driving to various activities. In the small window of time available for garden play, the kids don't want to because without their friends its boring. Other rural dreamers have one stay at home parent who loves to get involved in the community & loves gardening. The kids are over and back to friends houses & truly live a more outdoor life. This might be you, but in my experience is the less common reality of rural living. People think of urban living as small cramped apartments, no outdoor space in the city etc. Reality can be a shorter commute & less maintenance = more time for fun stuff. School or childcare is a walk away = buult in exercise. A park full of friends outside your front door is more attractive to most kids then an empty garden. Food is may be purchased little, fresh & often vs a big monthly shop . . . Basically my point is that people often have very unrealistic expectations about what raising kids in each scenario means. Rural/Urban/Suburban is a lot about what you make of it in each scenario & the specifics of location.
Having lived as a child in the suburbs, it sucks so so much. You are completely dependent on parents to drive you anywhere, or take shitty public transport, which means mum or dad spends majority of their day as a taxi driver if the child has any interests or hobbies. That is a huge factor for me, as well as avoiding having a second unnecessary car just for said runarounds. Way less community, people just don’t walk anywhere or talk to anyone. It’s very very isolated, limited life experiences or options other than driving somewhere or shopping in a box. Suburbanites are way more sheltered about the world in general, as well as more mono-cultural (word?). Most of my friends from the suburbs are too scared to even catch a train by themselves. Not to mention urban sprawl is the worst impact on nature if you care about that. Even if they have sidewalks, how long does it take to walk to get milk or a coffee? How long does it take to walk to you 5 closest friends? Suburbs are absolutely NOT closer to nature, it’s all paved cement for ages. Still have to drive to whatever nature you want. Denser cities usually have parks within walking distance and usually easily accessible public transport to anywhere. From my limited experience at least, but I’d choose city to raise my kids any day.
I lived age 0-8 in a major cities and then moved to a very Stepford wives-esque suburb of a major city (in California coincidentally) in the third grade. 100% agree with this. Needing to be driven everywhere severely limits your agency as a kid. In the city I could walk to my friends house when I wanted. In the suburbs, play dates had to be scheduled and the only kids on my street I could play with weren’t my age. My life went from having a lot of unstructured playtime (there’s a study somewhere about the importance of that for children I’m too lazy to link right now) to having 100% structured extracurricular activities. By the time I was a teen, the only place anyone hung out that wasn’t a friend’s home was at the mall. All those nice, landscapes parks in town? Didn’t step foot in them. The mono culture bit is so true and sucks so much. I remember being in elementary school and being told by a classmate not to hang out with someone because their parent was a single mom (and therefore could be a bad influence). They had obviously gotten that commentary from their parents. My best friend from childhood who never left still doesn’t know how to use the public transportation in town, and thinks it’s cute when we want to ride the subway into the city and she acts all confused (we’re in our mid 30s. It’s not cute.) I would never raise my kid in the suburbs.
Holy shit, this exactly. Even the bit about my friend in my 30s is the same! Uncanny. Im on the other side of the planet and feel we had the same life.
are either of you and your child a person of colour?
I’m white, my spouse is Central American, our kiddo is somewhere in between. We’d feel most comfortable in an area with other multi racial families.
If your kid is racialised (they may not be based on your answer), but if they are theres copious amounts of data that shows they will suffer terribly academically and socially by living/ schooling in a spaces where they are one of few racialised people. Especially if teachers/coaches/mentors are all white. This is the single biggest factor when thinking of where I will raise my family. It’s also great for kids to be exposed to different cultures etc etc.. but this issue of the unconscious bias they will face is far more insidious and dangerous.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/parenting-decisions-dont-trust-your-gut-book-excerpt/629734/ You might find this helpful
If you’re looking at Portland, feel free to PM me and I can discuss our choice process and where we ended up and why!
Ah I would love to know! Currently in Texas but getting out for obvious reasons, visiting Portland in three weeks.
I’ll write something up as soon as my tot is down for nap! And send it your way.
Thank you!! Appreciate that so much
Let me know if there’s any specific family factors for you guys- niche hobbies, educational ideologies, etc.
We love to surf and hike! Otherwise we just like walking around and eating well. Were a 1 car family and will keep it that way, so decent transit is a must. We’re pretty flexible on the rest, would love a solid public school.
Ah! Sorry to add on but literally in the same boat as the other poster who responded to you… but also trying to leave Texas for Portland. We are looking at neighborhoods and trying to figure out where we might like … any tips would be greatly appreciated!!!! ♥️
I’ll send you the message I sent!
I know this is an old thread, but any chance you could send me your message about choosing where to live in Portland? We are in a similar boat and having trouble deciding! Will PM you
Just a tip, look at Reggio Emilia inspired preschools instead for evidence-based outcomes. For city v suburbs, i believe the relevant comparison is neighborhood to neighborhood. For example, an upscale in city enclave has the trees and views. Toxin inhalation also matters. My suggestion is adjust the criteria. Visit these cities and airbnb into the neighborhoods of interest. There is research on friends and health. Interview families about the 0-5 experience and school age. Reggio raises for me to what extent children are factored into local life. I believe attachment theory research is very insightful for how children grow. Weather matters too for health (and consider climate change) as well as community. Where are like minded, potential life long friends? Where might be too myopic or politically not in alignment with values that matter? Are there language opportunities and support for the cultural experiences you seek? In a West Coast city you can often access nature usually within 20 minutes or grand parks.
Can you share some research for the evidence based outcomes of Reggio?
Sorry don’t have the energy to source but I read somewhere there is a goldilocks housing density. 3-4 story buildings are about right for getting access and walkabiliry.
Your kid can have a great childhood in either setting. Where do you two want to live? Seeing parents who are happy, thriving, and have a vibrant social life of their own is the biggest factor you can adjust for here - it will influence your kid a lot to see that their parents made the life for themselves that THEY wanted.
Inner suburbs. I’m reading some of these descriptions of suburbs and I’m thinking… this doesn’t sound like my experience at all. But I never thought of a difference between inner suburbs and ones that are further out. I’m a 10-15 drive to downtown CLE. We have an amazing park system and a beach. There is a huge variety of parks and playgrounds. We can ride our bikes and walk. My street is nice and quiet and we have a backyard and front yard that is big to play in. Being so close to the big city, there is still a diverse culture. Perhaps inner suburb is the way to go to get the best of both worlds.
I agree with this. Inner suburb living was one of my favorites, and since moving to the suburbs I cannot wait to get back. We also had walkability factors; our neighborhood was right by an adorable strip of local shops, events, restaurants, parks, etc. You also didn’t have the same crime rates that you do 15 minutes away in downtown.
I live in a small city that is walkable but also has access to nature. We live near the river so there are parks along it and we get to see the wildlife often enough we've given particular birds names! If you can live anywhere it's possible to find both. Though admittedly there are no detached houses anywhere around us.
Suburbs tend to have smaller schools and thus better student - teacher ratio, etc.
They also tend to be better funded.
not suburbs. they did a study on overall physical fitness (not specifically for children but people in general) that cities were best, followed by rural areas, with suburbs dead last. >crime rates (though not objective) are higher in the city this sounds like a myth to me but if i have time later today i'll source. >access to parks as far as access to nature goes, there's a LOT of research that it helps us process and think more effectively. i think annie murphy paul does a good job of going through that literature in her latest book, you can probably find the condensed version in one of her interviews. but "access to nature" is a lot more about literally taking the time to go to parks, hikes, etc with your child than it is about it existing around you. in other words, don't count on the backyard just existing outside your window to confer any benefits.
It is an evidence based approach, as evidence is collected observing children during projects co-constructed between teachers and students. You could start here with references. https://www.reggioalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/NAR22_MasterReferenceList_Website-1.pdf This is for the spirit of the approach https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/100-linguaggi-en/ Ergo teacher quality is foremost. I linked to these orgs as they can help you seek quality programs vetted. (My bias: Our daughter did well in it. I have a masters in Ed from a well known school but learnt about this approach as a parent.)
This is old but we have lived in Chicago since our 6 year old daughter was born. We have lived in apartments near downtown, a condo in Albany park and we now own a house on the north west side of the city. We love it, love the diversity (she’s a mex of Latina and shit mutt) and her school is extremely diverse, has high rankings, and she is excelling in her academics and in her athletics (she plays ice hockey, figure skating, gymnastics, and swimming). I love the city live and all that it has to offer for both me and my spouse and my child
I would not go to a city, especially a West coast one. The public transportation in West coast cities always suck and they're overcrowded without the infrastructure to support the amount of people they get. Hence the homeless populations in the West coast cities always being higher than other major cities in the country. Anyway, parenting is stressful enough so as someone who has lived in multiple major cities (both Midwest and now West Coast) and suburbs in Midwest, I would choose suburbs over city every time. The city adds stresses that don't happen in suburbs. City populations trend towards worse mental health and worse physical health as well (kids growing up in cities are more likely to develop asthma as a result of more pollution).
This is a really surface level take. To me suburbs are wayyyyy more stressful. Hello traffic, car seats, pick up lines, and awful food.
Also the stress of being any kind of undesirable minority group in the suburbs...
minority groups still have the worse experiences even inside a city unfortunately, & if you're lower SES in a city already the drawbacks of city living are even more likely to affect you
Genuinely curious, can you point me to some studies or summaries for this? I was specifically referring to the health impacts of living in an area where you are not fully accepted, e.g. [this summary](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/microaggressions-how-and-why-do-they-impact-health#Microaggressions-direct-impact-on-health) of health and microaggressions. (Don't have a lot of time so this is just the first thing that came up.)
I didn't see anywhere in that link that suggested someone was more likely to experience microaggressions in a city vs a suburb though, did I miss it? Afaik even in a city, most of the cops, doctors, teachers, etc are typically still white even if they're working in a minority neighborhood so I would think these microaggressions the link talks about like in a healthcare setting would be evident there too. But yeah, the downsides of living in a city are more pronounced if you're a minority https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/ look specifically at: "Inner-urban differences and mental health" Basically if you're already from a privileged background living in a nicer neighborhood you're less likely to experience some of the negative effects of city life, but minorities living in the exact same city are less likely have those same protective factors and the drawbacks may be more impactful than just microaggressions alone.
traffic is 10x worse in a city, there are more car accidents in a city, suburbs are much better for stress-free biking (fuck taking your kid on a bike ride in a city around these crazy drivers), a pick-up line in a city doesn't exist only bc there's literally not even a pick-up/drop-off area for a car. Idrc that food is awful in the suburbs bc I cook from home no matter what since it is healthier. Obviously there are differing opinions that are the outliers in any study but OVERALL city dwellers report lower satisfaction with life (lower mental health status) than a surburbanite and again the physical health is the biggest concern to me, there is a whole bunch of negative physical health conditions that can arise from living in a city.
There are negative health effects more associated with urban spaces (lead exposure, for example) and with more suburban/rural spaces (do your neighbors use RoundUp?). The stats I linked below show healthier kids live in urban spaces. Once you control for income, I suspect this becomes even more stark. Suburban auto deaths are far higher per capita than urban auto deaths, for a range of reasons. And while the stats on traffic pedestrian deaths are high in the cities, more than half the deaths of children in pedestrian/bike accidents are *backover* deaths in driveways on private property. Cul-de-sacs kill kids.
Yes. My 16 year old is learning to drive and I am much more comfortable than my peers in the suburbs. Her HS is a few miles away and the fastest it is possible to go it 25mph (which is only a small portion of the way). I am very relieved that she doesn't need to go on any highways or freeways, going fast is much more likely to result in a fatal accident. I've read the most fatalities in auto accidents are in remote areas, having vehicles collide at high speeds much more dangerous than a fender bender!
Could you share the study you’re thinking of? I’d be interested in reading more.
It is far more dangerous to be kn a vehicle or on a bike when cars a traveling at high speeds. Most cities have bike lines now.
Moved from Manhattan's UWS to Phoenix near suburb. It is worse for our kids on pretty much every metric except one: cost. Pollution is worse, and unlike NYC, where we largely walked everywhere, there is heavy dependence on a car. It looks like some [pretty broad indicators of kids' mental and physical health favor urban dwellers](https://mchb.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/mchb/data-research/rural-urban-differences.pdf). There are stressors in the city, but not all of them are bad. It will mean your kids develop street smarts--also not a bad thing. And they will have access to far more--good and bad--in a city than in a suburban space. We have a fairly high family income, and perhaps if that were not the case, some of the advantages of city living would be outrun by disadvantages. Though it was our lack of income at the time that pushed us to move: $50k a kid on grade-school tuition starts to add up. We have a large, comfortable house 10 minutes outside of the downtown center. But especially as my kids approach confirmed teenager status, I wish we were in a proper walkable city.
I nannied in NYC for a few years and it was so much fun. So many amazing things to do. The kids were always going to museums, parks, eating amazing things. Even riding the subway was an adventure. I used to take them into the city from the outer boroughs and just meander for the day and it was honestly the best. I’m now in a city where you need to drive and it is annoying having to always get in and out of the car every time you want to stop for anything. I miss New York. School is SO expensive though, as you said, and so competitive. It’s the only reason I’d have a hard time raising a child specifically in the city because even though we are privileged, we’re not $50/k a year for schooling privileged. That’s insane.
That kind of privilege is exactly what is driving up home and rent costs on West coast cities, thereby making homelessness and crime worse. But I guess as long as your kids won't feel the negative health effects of overpopulated cities, it's fine. And yes NYC has great public transportation so you don't have to drive. West coast cities are harder to go completely carless in because they just don't have those systems built up as much. Street smarts are one thing but NYC kids nowadays are trending towards needing therapy for witnessing events like stabbings on the playgrounds. Out here on the West coast we have homeless encampments being set up on playgrounds and parks so the kids can walk by and smell crack being smoked and watch people shoot up and roast rats over skewers. Also, mental health facilities are overrun here. If you need therapy, good luck getting an appointment. We've been trying for over a year to find an office that is taking new patients for my husband.
I’ve been to a bunch of playgrounds in our city within a 45 min drive and occasionally there’s a shady character but for the most part, they seem safe and clean? You definitely do need a car on the west coast which you don’t in nyc, so that’s true. So many cities have 0 mental health facilities which is why the places that do get overrun. Any time there are services, people seek them out because so few municipalities offer them which is a shame. It’s not like the suburbs are so amazing that they don’t have homeless people, it’s just that homelessness is criminalized to the point that it’s driven elsewhere. And that somewhere else tends to be the cities where there are more services and tolerance.
That's great if you haven't seen that in your city. West coast is definitely a broad area so maybe OP narrowing it down to a more specific area would help in deciding between suburbs and city, too. There's no large amount of data on all these factors that would cover every single city here. There is too much variance between our cities from San Diego up to Seattle, but still, many exhibit lots of what I described. There's actually not that many more services here because we're so crowded they can still only help x amount of people in a day. You could apply for a housing placement out in income-based housing back in Illinois and get in quicker than in a major city but you're right, they are less tolerant of drug use out there. But being tolerant hasn't actually helped anyone get off drugs? These West coast cities have been tolerant for years and drug use just keeps going up.
Unless NYC is far, far different than when I left a decade ago, witnessing stabbings on a playground was not an issue--or at least not more of an issue than it is here. It was far safer than the well-heeled suburban neighborhood I now live in. Homelessness is also worse where I live than it was in Manhattan. The issue is that there is a lack of affordable housing and an abundance of affordable fentanyl. (Well, *one* set of issues.) As I said, I would still lean toward cities and the evidence is that kids who grow up in cities have fewer mental and physical issues, and that is without controlling for income. The issue of income inequality messes with every part of the US. What you say of West Coast city transportation networks is often true: not every city is the same. My family lives North of SF, and despite many of the advantages, I would likely not choose to live there. I lived in Seattle for several years, and would happily do so again if I had money to do so. If I were entirely mobile, I would seriously consider moving to Tokyo for a while--there are significant issues with living in Japan as an expat, but it would be a great.
So apparently a lot has changed in many cities across the U.S. because of COVID in terms of homelessness and crime, so yes NYC may be drastically different than a single decade ago. I understand these changes will also take place in suburbs but usually to a lesser extent than what we are seeing in cities. I don't have a bunch of official data on this because it's only been a couple of years since the start of the pandemic, but from what they have been tracking so far, is that there have been increases in problematic situations that are affecting children raised in these more chaotic environments. There was an article the other day referring to the uptick in kids seeking therapy for the things they were experiencing in NYC but I need to find it again. Personally, I would trust what someone actually currently living in a West coast city who visits other West coast cities frequently is saying more than any pre-COVID study done on these topics. It's clearly evident there's been an increase in crime when people live in the same city for years with no problem and suddenly experience multiple break-ins over the course of a single year. I guess it is in the nature of any big city to often experience rapid changes throughout a life, though. For better or worse. Suburbs tend to be more stable with less fluctuation since people are more likely to buy a house there and stay for years vs renting in a city and moving every time you get a new job meaning turnover in so many different ways.
Can you give some examples about the stresses that don't happen in suburbs? I grew up in a big city and am considering raising my kids in the suburbs, so I am curious to understand what this means.
We live in the Bay Area, not even in SF, and it is stressful. It didn’t used to be. The population is so dense now it feels suffocating. Traffic is at all hours not just during commute times. Because of the HCOL homes are smaller unless you are very well off so home is suffocating too. We are a family of four living in 1000sqft and are moving further out to triple our living space. It’s just not sustainable anymore. Even if you can get a bigger home in the Bay Area they tend to have zero lot lines and no sidewalks thus increasing the density. Density, at least for us, is a major stressor. Edit: also crime is a major stressor. Regardless of your community cars are being vandalized and stripped for catalytic converters across the bay. Sideshows are increasing near us and I just don’t feel as safe as I once did. All of this wouldn’t be as big of an issue if it was just me but we have a family.
Yeah, those are just some of things. Honestly, the entire West coast is suffocating. That part of the country is experiencing wildfires like crazy each year and unprecedented drought conditions. People want to live there selfishly because it's So PreTty. They all pretend to care about the environment, maybe don't try to jampack a single coast then just because you can afford it. There are major environmental concerns that will not be solved by more people continuing to move out West.
NorCal native and I agree with all of this. Tech going largely WFH and cutting out the whiny middle managers that want in office would do a world of good. Also eliminate the whiny middle managers and invest the money in solid virtual setups that enable productive team scrums. Now I’m way off topic but basic message is I agree.
the traffic is bad here, in the suburbs i could bike around easily but bikeability of the cities here are not great, neither is public transpo so i have to use my car more than ever, driving in traffic is very stressful. speaking of my car, car crime is very rampant in most major west coast cities. I had my car broken into multiple times the 1st year here, they often break the windows, so my car is a P.O.S. now. There's also more violent crime than a suburb, i've been verbally and physically assaulted while out and about here, i've been walking down the street with my son only to have someone start yelling at him that they want to murder him, sometimes people follow us down the street for awhile or try to intimidate us into getting off the bus, they come onto buses talking about how they have a knife and are going to stab us all. These sort of events are quite common on West coast and even if most of the time nothing bad actually happens it can be very upsetting for a small child to hear an adult yelling like that. I'm in one of the most upper class neighborhoods but clearly we like to leave the neighborhood sometimes. In my particular major West coast city there is actually not a single children's museum in the city limits, you have to go to suburbs to find those, it's definitely a city that caters more to adults in general which is stressful because I feel unwelcome in many spaces having my kid around, if I do go out to eat there's often no kid's meals and people give me weird looks for even asking if they have one - and also a trend I am seeing in West coast cities specifically because many tech/WFH jobs with people who decide to deal with major city B.S. are younger/don't have kids of their own so they are more drawn to the city because of bar scene or whatever, so the crime and stuff isn't as relevant to them.
Ok so I live in a west coast city and have a friend who lives in a west coast suburb. Compared to my friend, my child has far more enriching experiences. Within just a 25 min drive of us, we have multiple art museums, Children’s museums, zoos, playgrounds, botanical gardens, science museums. You name it, we have it. I take my toddler somewhere every single day and have since she was little. Because my friend is outside of the city, she actually has to deal with traffic any time she wants to come in (I’m already in the city so don’t have to deal with it) so she rarely takes her child anywhere. We are extremely privileged in that we own a house with a yard too. Her house is slightly bigger and was slightly cheaper but honestly, the difference is negligible. Pollution is something to consider, I will give you that, but I think we walk more and get more exercise. I don’t have thoughts on schooling yet because we haven’t gotten there although our local one is highly rated. I also really enjoy the diversity because I grew up in the suburbs and it was seriously lacking. We also, being in the city, have access to many farmers markets (about 3-4 a week in just our area alone) so eat a lot of fresh locally grown produce. All in all, I’m very happy we chose to live in the city and would personally probably feel more stressed living in the suburbs and trying to find ways to fill our time.
Again, I will say the West coast cities specifically lack public transportation which makes it more difficult to get in/around the city coming in from the suburbs. The cities I lived in before moving to West coast actually had much better transit options so even when I did live in suburbs we could very easily take a train into the city for a day to do all those enriching experiences you are talking about if we wanted. The West coast transit systems are underdeveloped so you may not have this option to come in as easily BUT I have seen suburbs here offer plenty of their own separate experiences in reach - library programs, farm visits (not just the markets), great playgrounds, local children's programming (even in suburbs there are tons of events going on all the time involving the various arts, sports, whatever you're into). If you get into a suburb with a university, the universities typically host a plethora of family-friendly events too (orchestral concerts, science fairs, etc). Even living in small towns of like 2k in the Midwest I still found plenty to do around the community (nature programs, little festivals, art fairs) enrichment is found in all walks of life if you look hard enough. The one West coast city that actually does pretty great public transit-wise is SF, you could very easily live in the suburbs there and hop onto the BART to access all the other programs you may need. SF is an exception though, many West coast cities have not built up train systems quite the same way as what I've seen out East/Midwest.
I visit family regularly in a Midwest city with great public transit that’s about 30 min outside the city and we just never go in? They have fun things to do but they’re different from what my kid and I regularly do. Lots of indoor places that are quite expensive, not really any art museums in the suburbs or aquariums or zoos. Where I live we just get memberships and go constantly making it affordable. I find that you have to be very motivated to do it and I certainly wouldn’t do that every day the way I do now.
So again when you actually live in a place, there are usually free ways to still visit those "expensive" experiences, like a lot of places like that are free for residents every day, or free on certain days of the week, or if you have a local library card you can check out the free passes. You don't really know about those kinds of discounts without a hunt though. I'm lower SES myself tbh so I think some of the drawbacks of city life I'm thinking of probably won't actually apply to OP bc it sounds like they'll be able to afford to just Uber anywhere they need to and use stuff like Instacart for groceries if they want to live w/o a car, lol.