"San Francisco is holding onto its title as the country's most childless major city, and in fact the numbers haven't budged in a decade. Every couple of years the national media seizes on the story, with each update from the Census Bureau, of the American cities that have the fewest families with children under 18, and San Francisco has been coming out on top for over two decades now."
"The number dipped as low as 13% during the pandemic, when the 2020 Census came out, but it's come back up to 13.4%. Seattle is the next-most childless city, according to the latest census estimates, per the Chronicle, with 14% children under 18. Compare that to Los Angeles (18.5%), New York (19.6%), and Houston (24%), all far larger cities where more people still seem to be managing to raise kids."
"In SF, of course, affordable housing is an issue for the middle and working classes, and being the boom-and-bust city that it has been since its earliest days, it has taken on the character of a transient haven a place where younger people come to make career moves, and then move on. The preponderence of rental housing that is often shared by wage-earning roommates is also a factor in affordability, as the New York Times noted back in 2017."
San Francisco has 13.4% of residents under 18, unchanged since 2014 and down from roughly 15–16% in earlier decades. The share dipped to 13% during the 2020 Census pandemic count and later recovered to 13.4%. Seattle follows with 14% under 18, while Los Angeles, New York, and Houston report higher shares (18.5%, 19.6%, and 24% respectively). High housing costs, a prevalence of shared rental units, and a transient, career-oriented population limit availability and affordability of larger family-sized apartments, pushing many families toward suburbs and other cities perceived as more child-friendly.
Read at sfist.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]