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It’s not just financial means. Nobody really wants to live in a downtown area of a city, because of homeless people, drugs, crime etc. unless you happen to be rich enough to afford one of the very expensive and exclusive areas of the city, you basically live with crime as an everyday reality of your life. Leaving the door of your car unlocked so thieves don’t smash it. Women carrying at least mace (because guns are illegal) and often being consigned to their homes after sunset. Using the buddy system or proactively telling people everything you’re doing so someone knows where to start looking if something happens. I can’t imagine any woman tolerating the idea of having a baby in the city if they have the means to flee somewhere safer.
I live in downtown Chicago and this does not reflect my experience. It's less that you need to be in an excessively exclusive area, just avoid the very bad areas. People actively want to live in several of the downtown clusters, especially in their youth. We'll probably move out to the burbs when we have out kid of school age for the better schools, not because we fear the area.
This is exactly the kind of problem Democrats need to solve if they want to win people back. People dont want long commutes and to move out for schools, but the reality is that if a default place requires very close oversight of a 2 year old, its not really fit for humans. If there is glass on the ground or shit, perhaps you have a dog and have had to pull them away in your neighborhood. Kids shouldnt be on leashes, they are humans that need to learn, but learning not to step in the dog shit is not so valuable a lesson for a 2 year old. Particularly when that dog shit is mixed with glass in a kids playground where, in more normal places, you can trust to just let said 2 year old march around while you enjoy a coffee.
Plus the playground bullies are out of control ATM in cities. Many biters. Cops will charge YOU if you discipline or physically separate a kid while defending your own. Particularly if the stack isn't in your favor.
And you know all this. You know "better schools" is a euphemism for better peer students and peer parents. No amount of Stuyvesant and Stevenson teachers would make Haitian kids learn. And I sure as heck know the Stevenson kids dont have any broken glass on their feeder campus.
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I live in NYC, and I've never heard of anyone living like that. I've lived here for about 8 years, and I know of exactly 1 instance of somebody I personally know being affected by street crime, and that was just a phone snatching. Maybe some women carry pepper spray, but I've never noticed it. IMO, carrying pepper spray indicates that things are pretty safe because it's not very effective against much. I do know lots of people, men and women, young and old, who have no concerns at all about walking around alone late at night, even drunk. I've never heard of anybody telling people everything they're doing in case "something happens".
I'm not really sure if car break-ins are much of a problem honestly, mostly because very few people have them, and if they do, they mostly park them in expensive private parking garages. It does seem a little surprising I guess, but I would think I would have heard of it happening at least some if it was actually common.
It is fairly common for people who want to have kids to move out, but that's more because it's quite expensive to get a large enough space, not because of concerns about crime. There definitely are a lot of kids of all ages around, including in strollers and being walked around. Enough that it's reasonably common to be mildly annoyed by someone wheeling a baby stroller around in a place that seems kind of inappropriate, like inside a crowded store.
You're about 30 years too late for NYC. There still are cities like that, though.
Maybe! I've lived in or visited several big cities, and never seen or heard of things like that though. It seems more plausible to me that things might be more like what Maiq described in what I guess you could call "dead cities" - the medium-small cities that used to be thriving, but all of the industries that were there left for various reasons. Most of the decent people with good life potential also left due to the lack of good jobs long before things got bad. The resulting downward spiral leads to a pretty bad place.
But then, those places are not exactly havens of progressivism, and I don't think any blue-affiliated people are going to decide to move there, which was the point of this whole thread.
Detroit and Baltimore are typical examples. Both have areas where blue-affiliated people were moving (though to enclaves), though I don't know if they still do.
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If you feel consigned to your home after sunset, you're more likely to need psychiatric medication than moving boxes. On average, people are moving to cities, and aren't afraid of the dark. I've never known a city dwelling woman to carry any means of protection. Fertility rates have remained about 10% lower in large metro areas than rural areas for over a decade. Not being able to imagine something 10% less frequent is caused by a broken imagination.
I know plenty, counting pepperspray. Are you not an American?
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How many women have you known the contents of the purse of when they walk around at night?
Unfortunately old comment but over the years no woman has ever mentioned carrying protection. Hundreds if not thousands of women over decades in major American cities. I've dated a dozen or so. I don't recall the idea even being mentioned, though it probably has. I moved out of the US in 2019. Crime has an absurd socioeconomic divide. My crime bubble is probably 5% of the modal white American. I grew up in a small, isolated town of decent prosperity. I'm 40ish and have never been the victim of anything other than petty crime, and even that rare. Same with my friends in all places AFAIKT. Its one data point, but its an honest perspective. So rarely have I seen crime that it is not something I think about. I'm positive it exists and am happy to pay for competent policing everywhere. Criminal (In)Justice was a good read on the geography of crime. Without any forethought, I have live where crime isn't. And now I shall knock on wood.
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“Downtown” / urban core parts of SF, NYC, Boston are some of the most expensive real estate in the US.
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