The Answer: Schools, crime, and the high cost of housing.

In that order.

The Question: Why don’t middle-class families stay in Boston?

Why do I ask?

The Globe had a long article in last this week’s magazine, regarding the “flight” of middle-class families out of Boston into the suburbs.

In some ways, it’s nothing new, right? I mean, wealthy and middle-class families have been bailing out of Boston since the 1950’s, right?

What is new, in my opinion, and based on the author’s research, is that more people are buying condos in Boston, settling down, getting married (or co-habitating), having one or two children, and then moving out to the suburbs.

Why?

Schools, crime, and the high cost of housing.

Can you blame them?

A better question is, do you want to stop them?

Some people do.

Without those middle-class families to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, the very identity of a community can get lost, argues Joel Kotkin, author of The City: A Global History, who has coined the term “boutique city” to describe the new focus on downtown restaurants, condos, and hotels at the expense of residential communities. “We’re seeing the Vail-ization effect, where cities become productive resorts. They are not a place of upward mobility for the vast majority of people.”

I don’t see this as a black-or-white issue (ha ha) but I do tend to think that it’s unlikely cities will once again be home to a thriving middle-class made up of a dad (middle management), a mom (housewife, and part-time real estate agent), and two kids playing kickball in the streets of the North End.

I mean, be serious.

Although we’ve seen what seems to be a major increase in young couples with children moving into the downtown Boston area, it might be an optical illusion. For one thing, the number of children enrolled in the city’s school system has dropped over the past decade (even as the school budget has almost doubled).

While there are more and more (white) families moving into the city, and staying, even after their children reach school age (at least, Kindergarten and grade school), I don’t think the trend will continue, or increase, in any noticeable way.

(Having said that, it is true that parents of school-aged children have done a wonderful job of getting involved in their local schools, in the South End and the Back Bay. Oh, but how did they Mayor respond to requests for a new school on Beacon Hill? No way, he said. Whoa. Actions speak louder than words.)

The school budget in Boston has almost doubled, in less than ten years. Yet, there has been little success, quantifiable or otherwise, that they are any better than they were, when the Mayor first came into office.

So, give up trying.

Not everyone would agree that losing families to the suburbs is necessarily a bad thing. After all, when urban dwellers move out of the city, they take their values with them – making the suburbs more vibrant. “They have cafes and stores that are gathering places during the day, and increasingly gourmet food, without having to go back in the city,” says David Luberoff, executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Rather than demonizing each other, he says, the suburbs and the cities can have a symbiotic relationship, with people cycling back and forth. And it’s not a stretch to think that the improvement of city services that has spurred a renaissance in city living could eventually prompt families to return as well.

Here, here. Hear, hear.

You know, I would at least like to read one story on this topic - how would such a city look, a city made up of an upper middle class and upper class and a lower class; how would it operate, how would it sustain itself, how would it pay its bills, etc.

Where’s an MIT grad student when you need one?

(I would also add, not only does it benefit towns in the suburbs to have a more diverse (economically & culturally) population, but it benefits the city of Boston by having less of a middle-class, since they cost the city a lot in city services, while providing little benefit.)

One minor quibble with the Globe article: The author uses San Francisco as an example of a city that has stemmed the tide of parents leaving cities, which is apparently true, in raw numbers. Yet, he doesn’t include in his article any interviews with residents to find out whether or not they are sticking around because of the city’s efforts. The only one he talks with is the Mayor. Gee, do you think he might be a little biased???

More: The Departing - By Michael Blanding, The Boston Globe Magazine

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