J.D. Vance would not like living in Sausalito.
A mere 9% of the city’s residents, the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported, are under 18, making it “one of the handful of communities in California with at least 5,000 people where less than 1 in 10 residents is a child.”
Looking beyond the politics, the furor over the vice presidential candidate’s crack about “cat ladies” and his support of a higher rate for taxpayers without children shouldn’t obscure the fact that the burgeoning natalist movement is pan-ideological.
Observers from the left, right and all points in-between worry that the nation’s “total fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman in 2023,” a record low “since the government began tracking it in the 1930s,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Last year saw “the fewest U.S. births since 1979, when the U.S. population was 225.1 million compared to 340 million in 2023,” according to the University of New Hampshire.
And of particular concern? The trend in America’s cities.
Over a decade ago, Ali Modarres and Joel Kotkin denounced the “experiment to rid our cities of children.” They noted that, “(O)ur great American cities, from New York and Chicago to Los Angeles and Seattle, are evolving into playgrounds for the rich, traps for the poor, and way stations for the ambitious young en route eventually to less congested places.”
Several years later, The New York Times reported on San Francisco’s “dearth of children,” and pondered if the phenomenon raised questions about the city’s character: “Are fewer children making San Francisco more one-dimensional and less vibrant?” In 2019, Derek Thompson, writing for the left-leaning magazine The Atlantic, lamented New York City’s metamorphosis into a “theme park of childless affluence, where the rich can behave like children without having to see any.”
What role has public policy played in the de-childing of cities? Social science is inherently complex, but according to scholar Randal O’Toole, evidence points to “land-use policies aimed at densification” as a significant contributor.
In June, the Institute for Family Studies released an analysis of American Community Survey and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth datasets. Senior Fellow Lyman Stone found: “When women live in smaller, more crowded houses, they have fewer children. This is especially true if those small, crowded houses happen to be in areas of high population density, where crowding within the household is echoed outside of the household.”
Yes, Americans want to live in urbanized areas – 83 percent of us have made that choice – but not many prefer apartment complexes or high-rises. People who want to build families have other preferences: A yard, patio, exterior lighting, sizable kitchen, spacious pantry, lots of closets, garage storage. Polling of home buyers by the National Association of Home Builders makes those priorities clear.
Americans broadly reject city planners’ decades-long belief that “that high densities mean less congestion, are better for the environment, and have less crime because there are more ‘eyes on the street,’” as O’Toole explained. Parents want to raise their kids in the suburbs.
“Smart growth” is unquestionably a hindrance for fertility. But should municipal elected officials be tempted to eschew densification, and try to boost baby-making with child-oriented “infrastructure,” they should remember that what feels right can have very little connection to reality.
On a recent trip to Spain, Substacker Jim Dalrymple II wrote that he was “surprised to discover extensive networks of kid-friendly urban design. From frequent playgrounds to calm and mostly car-free streets, these design elements were transformative, giving my kids more independence than they ever previously had in a city – and freeing us parents up in ways I never would’ve thought possible. It was fantastic and left me convinced that pro-family Americans should push to copy this approach. If Spain can do it, so can we.”
He was particularly impressed after finding playground after playground after first settling into his apartment with this family. But it would surely come as news to Dalrymple, but next to South Korea, Spain has the lowest total fertility rate in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. And it is second to Japan for the share of women born in 1975 “remaining permanently childless.”
More playgrounds, however tempting to little ones, pale in comparison to the paid leave, salary reimbursements, “free” child care, and other benefits countries have showered on couples – to very little avail. “No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate,” Vox’s Anna North noted, “people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.”
Government’s ability to boost birthrates is limited. Natalists should consider what urban policy shouldn’t do: trying to force current and potential parents settle down in homes and neighborhoods they overwhelmingly reject. Maybe doing less is one of the best tools cities possess.
D. Dowd Muska is a researcher and writer who studies public policy from the limited-government perspective. A veteran of several think tanks, he writes a column and publishes other content at No Dowd About It.
