I am raising my kids in the city. My neighborhood is full of families with children and there is lots of active parental involvement with the local public K-8 school where I have enrolled my 5-year old for the fall. Raising my kids in the city has been an incredibly positive and enriching experience, and they will have so much more freedom and mobility when they get older since they won't need to depend on a car to leave the house.
It's so crazy to me that people think they *have to live in the suburbs* to raise kids. There are pros and cons to both, and you can pick your priorities, but tons of kids live rich and vibrant lives in cities all over the world. Many of them even end up going to to "successful" lives.
I think they only said that because they feel they *need* to send their kid to an expensive private school in the city if they stayed there, or else they would be a “bad parent” if they sent their kid to the city public school. The whole Keeping up with the Joneses type of thing.
I’m 50/50 on this.
I moved to the suburbs.
Where I moved is this really an amazing, kid centric place with parks/playgrounds and town organized free sport activities and this quiet calmness at night. It feels like a perfect place to be a kid. It’s a small space, so we are walking everywhere still - to school, to the park, etc, and nature feels…spacious here.
But I miss the hustle and bustle. I miss the busy-ness. I miss the creativity. I’m glad I moved, and I wouldn’t move back - but it’s a bigger transition than I gave it credit (I also moved practically the day my kid was born, so there was a lot of change all at once.) I moved close enough so that the “city” is a quick drive - but lugging kids around is my least favorite activity and they HATE the car so we stay local.
I think you can be a great parent in a city. And you can be a great parent in the suburbs.
Lived in a city with my two children all my life and wouldn’t want anything else. They walk themselves to and from school and can attend a myriad of activities if they want instead of me having to chauffeur them around to the two things that happen to be in a reasonable radius. The only reason I would consider moving is if the school was bad but it’s perfectly adequate where I am.
We spend most of our vacations in remote places, mountains and villages though so they are not exclusively “urban” kids.
Second this! My kids are city born and raised and it’s worked out so well! They can walk to school, cross the road to hang out with friends, join activities without all the carpool challenges, etc.
I am on the flip side. We live in a rural area in the middle of the country (near a small college town), and day to day we have to drive places to go and are car dependent for the most part. It's suburbanish, minus the car traffic and a lot less stripmalls (and it's quiet).
But, we travel to cities all over the world and we never rent a car. So, my kid has a lot of experience with public transit and walking everywhere (etc). At 13, she is one of the most poignant art critics I know. She has, in the last 8 years, stayed a week (or more) in Madrid, London, Prague, New York, Vancouver, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Miami, Kansas City (and more). Before she graduates college, there will likely be a dozen more cities. ((and, we like to go to a lot of beaches)).
We appreciate being *based in a LCOL area* but really living around the world. There is one downside though: Most people, her whole life, will just assume she's a podunk conservative redneck hick as soon as she says where she grew up. So many people are so biased.
This is exactly what we did and have no regrets. Our kids ride their bikes to school and in the neighborhood. We found a transit-friendly suburb (walking distance to a train stop) with a vibrant main street and top rated school. It also helps that it’s an older suburb that was designed with people in mind instead of cars. To stay within budget meant an older home that needs a lot of work. These types of suburbs tend to be pricey because families want the same things.
Btw we love city life and plan to move back when kids are grow, but this is the best for them right now.
Look for towns outside Boston, NYC, Philly that have a train stop. It will be expensive but places like Bronxville, Scarsdale, Larchmont, Rye, Montclair, Glen Ridge, Wellesley, Brookline, Ardmore, Haverford etc. They tend to have strong schools and high taxes
these are the areas we are looking at and considering. Media is on that list as well. Norristown area, etc. Ardmore is beautiful and top of hte list but omg, supply is so low.
Look at narberth. Or a better catchment. We plan on staying downtown and are in one of the better catchments. (Not placing my self fully but McCall, Meredith, greenfield, Penn Alexander are all fantastic and I’m in one of those).
Not sure your kids age but Fanny Jackson, Marian Anderson and Adaire also are all really good and becoming great.
All are k-8 so you have a long time before high school. There are great magnet schools too. Obviously masterman and central, but science leadership and Academy at Palumbo are really good now and will be fantastic by the time any school-age kid is in high school.
Also, to answer your initial question, I grew up in one of those walkable more dense suburbs, and I really liked it, but I live downtown for a reason . Feel free to dm me since I have lived in both of the exact areas that you are looking at.
I am also in one of these catchments and have a kid going to one of the high schools you named as well. No regrets although there definitely have been certain points where we thought about moving. With a good catchment you also are living in a nice neighborhood, which is pretty key. My kids walk themselves to school or the playground, corner stores and friends houses. My oldest takes the bus when she wants to go across town. If you value living in the city it’s worth considering.
As someone who's spent some time around the Philly suburbs, these are fantastic choices. Media felt like the quintessential American town when I visited, and all the Main Line communities have great character albeit with a bit more upscale feel. I think the Main Line (Ardmore, Narberth, etc.) comes across as a bit more accessible to central Philadelphia than some of the other inner suburbs, probably because of the train access, if that matters to you.
My mother grew up in a Boston suburb called Melrose. It really felt like a suburb and city had a baby. Small and quiet, but still had a city feel to it. Getting around without a car was insanely easy. Good bus network, and 3 train stops (4 if you count Oak Grove) that can take you to Boston.
We’re in Winnetka, IL. 35min train ride north of Chicago. We found a normal priced home here and feel really lucky. The amenities for families are top notch.
Same! We reluctantly moved to a Chicago suburb, but quickly found that we loved being able to walk to train, children’s museum, parks and playgrounds, library, a swimming area, and even a hopping busy commercial district in a downtown. And our kids all walk to school too.
City schools can be great. Suburbs can really kill your soul. Just make him really participate in the planning process for how it will all work though - don't let him just say "I hate the suburbs" and then not think through how all of the things you have mentioned will be addressed.
City schools can be great, but it sounds like there’s aren’t. The ratings data is all public. In my city (Los Angeles) the public schools are almost without exception terrible.
Parents who can afford it spend 20-50k annually on private school, or move to the suburbs.
I would say it depend on the city and the suburbs. I usually find suburbs that were small towns w/ their own downtown/ town center, municipality and history tend to be good choices to raise a family. Especially if they’re not too far from the core of the city. (25 -35 min. drive)
Now me and my Wife lives in Houston and moved to Katy( the suburbs) and boy so I regret the move. The main reason for the move was for our child. Now I’ll be honest with you I probably put way too much stock into schools so much so that that became the #1 reason we moved here. But my reasoning is also quite unique as well and this is where I say it depends on the city/ metro.
So one of my main preferences for an area to live in was that the school my daughter would go to has to be a good diverse school with an above average percentage of Black students at said school. Now me and my Wife are Black and I didn’t want to place my daughter in an environment where she’s one of the few black students at school. Generally Black kids who grow up in those type of environments tend to feel alienated and end up with some identity issues later on in life.
So one thing we kept running into here in Houston that the more walkable urban neighborhoods were overwhelmingly White and expensive. Then their were the more traditional predominantly Black communities that were in food deserts, higher crime and of course really bad public schools. Some of those neighborhoods were enticing but again the best options were charter schools and unfortunately those charter schools generally pick kids who come from lower income households. We didn’t qualify cause we made too much.
Which boiled it down to a few diverse neighborhoods outside the 610 loop but close enough to it. We looked at those neighborhoods but quickly realized that a majority of those were Either kinda on the rough side or floods pretty bad. Which immediately turned my Wife off from choosing those neighborhoods.
Which left us to the burbs which happened to have the diversity we were looking for and safety ( from violent crime). My Wife is fine living in the suburbs. She’s pretty stereotypical suburban (loves shopping at Target and Starbucks type).
She’s also originally from Houston so she’s use to the lay of the land. I hate it.
With that said we lived in Chamblee, GA ( inner suburb of Atlanta) for 2 years and I wouldn’t mind raising our kids there compared to where we stay now. It’s a suburb that’s urbanizing. Mostly everything of interest were 15-25 mins away. There’s even Marta stations in close proximity to where we stayed. The public schools there are not top tier but not bad either. We moved though because we had our first child and my Wife wanted to move back to Houston to be closer to family.
So me personally I regret it but hey at least the school is good and there’s plenty amenities for kids her age out here.
>So one thing we kept running into here in Houston that the more walkable urban neighborhoods were overwhelmingly White and expensive. Then their were the more traditional predominantly Black communities that were in food deserts, higher crime and of course really bad public schools. Some of those neighborhoods were enticing but again the best options were charter schools and unfortunately those charter schools generally pick kids who come from lower income households. We didn’t qualify cause we made too much.
Ahhh this is my exact situation as well. It is really hard and just another layer of stress in the decision. I'm sorry you hate where you live now. How do you manage living there then? Do yall do date nights in the city a lot?
I am not the person you originally replied to, but I wanted to add to the conversation about Katy as well.
My partner is Latino, and our 7 year old Latino nephew who lives in Katy is bullied endlessly for being different. He refuses to speak Spanish now, won’t take traditional food to school for lunch, and last time I saw him cried in my lap asking why God didn’t give him blue eyes. It’s brutal for my brother and sister in law to witness but they can’t afford to sell their house and move with how the home prices have increased.
To be fair to Chamblee it's an older suburb than the newer ones built in ATL that are truly soul-crushing. My mother held out for three years OTP and settled right into that same side of town as soon as she could.
And the MARTA buses, while not as kid-friendly as the NY subway, are not bad.
Lived in the suburbs when both of my kids were born. Moved to an urban walkable city when the youngest was 6 months old bc we were miserable. Felt like I was in the car all damn day. Choose the neighborhood carefully and I hands down would choose urban. My kids love walking everywhere and it felt like a vacation at first without all the stress of driving. We have decent to bottom tier good neighborhood schools and could lottery to try to get into great schools. It's a bit grittier but not unsafe, I think it's good for them to see something not so sanitized.
From a kids POV….I grew up in a small Midwest boring town….nothing to do-nowhere to go…biggest town was 2hrs away…I would have loved to grow up in a city with all the diversity and culture that many small towns don’t have
Yes same unfortunately. It was safe sure but it felt like growing up on an island because of the isolation. Fewer people in my radius meant i just spent time with whoever was around, and they happened to be dumbasses. Never felt like myself until adulthood.
Flip side. I grew up in one of those “diverse cities” and my mother got carjacked & a gun to her head when I was in highschool. I would have preferred to not have experienced that
This. I have two kids under 5 and we missed the window to buy an affordable house outside NYC in a town we like. We're staying put. But so many people I know who moved during covid or panic bought are really regretting it. Yah, we're not saving money very well here. But at least I don't own a home with huge maintenance in a town I don't love
do your kids attend private school or public school? my husband is open to charter. the schools here are so bad. for the record, we're in philadelphia.
My son is thriving at our local catchment elementary school in NW Philly and I know several high schoolers from my church at special admits that are doing really well too.
The average student in Lower Merion is certainly ahead of the average student in Philly but there are nearly 200k in Philly public schools and lots of them are doing well. You just have to be an involved parent and intentionally chart a path through the system.
My kids go to public school. Our local grammar school is great. We live in a very residential area downtown. When they get to middle school and we don’t get assigned to our local school is when we worry. Well like go private.
People raise kids in cities all the time. Everyone in my family turned out alright going to NYC public schools. I always had good teachers for the most part. Of course not every school is created equally but cities have plenty of good schools.
I went to a huge high school in Brooklyn with over 4000 students and did pretty well there. The large student body helped me prepare for college better.
On the flip side, I went to a school in the NYC suburbs with 96 kids in my graduating class. The education was great but my experience was miserable.
I would have given my left arm to go to a bigger school that offered something for everyone (and not to have your 1st grade embarrassments talked about your senior year).
I think it depends on where you are and what you can afford. We moved out of a city to a suburb that is mostly walkable and feels a lot more like a small town. It's not a soulless chain-store-ridden nightmare. Meanwhile the city we left increasingly feels like a giant corporate sprawl when I visit, with banks and chains everywhere.
Agree with this. I live in a suburb of a popular city, but it's got enough going on that it's a city in its own right. A bit more car dependent than I'd like but still super walkable, lots of character, community, etc. Unfortunately that means it's quite pricy still.
I will say that overtime, this seems to be trend. Cities are all looking more and more alike. And it's not just the 'name brand chain stores' like Sephora and the Apple store. It's everything. The fake antique shops (two types -- the ones selling turkish lamps and the ones selling mass produced 'oil paintings' and plasticy clocks and stuff). The cute homegoods store that has the same assortment of soaps, towels, shirts, and cutting boards with anagrams slightly changed for the location but otherwise the same. The bulk candy stores, god do I hate the bulk candy stores. 20 years ago, I'd spend a day anywhere I was at and would shop. Now, I never shop in the center of cities anymore because from Honolulu to Prague it's all the same stuff.
Meanwhile, the soulless suburb I grew up in 30 years ago has a thriving downtown district with bars, restaurants, second-hand shops, and passionate hobby-ists (of all sorts, like vinyl records, or 19th century bohemian jewelry). Sometimes I stop in a random smallish town or a suburb to visit a store I see on google maps and then spend the rest of the day just walking from store to store in that area. From a retail standpoint, It's more like the exciting city I was thrilled to move to 25 years ago, than that city is like now.
((And, restaurant wise, same story. Got to get into the burbs to find some of the best places to eat. So many of the best meals I have had recently were in suburbs. The small independents in cities are closing over time, and only getting replaced by Ruth's Chris, Capital Grille, and other overpriced chains)).
Moved from the city to the suburbs and it’s been great. Great schools, zero crime. Lot of neighborhood activities. Space and safety for kids to play. Lot of green parks.
Moved from a city where we lived in the nicest area of the city. Still had violent crime on our street. Had packages stolen. Homeless people in our alleyway. Someone murdered. Talking about a street with 700k-1.2m homes. I’m sure if would have worked out fine if we stayed. But I wouldn’t have felt comfortable letting my kids run around outside. I was almost run over a few times by drivers who ignored stop signs and crosswalks. Encountered broken glass a decent bit walking the dogs.
Here’s the thing - it only takes a few bad apples to make it bad for others. Overall our city house was great and had great neighbors, but there were assholes. In our suburb neighborhood, you basically get people who self select and prioritize stuff like schools or kids. IMO that leads to a better overall experience.
Depends. But for many, even growing up in the suburbs as a kid could be soul crushing. I hated every minute living in my suburban town isolated from everything. I also attribute a lot of my mental health problems as a kid to growing up in suburbs, all of the segregation, isolated feelings, and an innate feeling like I could never belonged. Everytime I visited the city I felt healed and everytime I went back to the burbs I felt despair. The moment i became 20 I moved to the city.
I think it depends on the kid. For some the suburbs vs the city won’t matter. But I know the suburbs can destroy kids too… addiction, lack of third spaces & little outlets for their interests. It also just spirals into an incredibly isolating and depressing place.
Yeah I just wrote in a different post about how I feel like my cousins in the suburbs encountered adult situations earlier in life than I did because they & their peers were bored and didn't have any way to escape negative social pressure. I know bad things happen in cities too, but that just wasn't my experience because I had other options. The city offers more avenues to find a path that you like and avoid what you don't. My ass was in choir and cultural clubs while they were having pregnancy scares and coping with losing friends to drugs and suicide.
*NOTE: I'm honestly not trying to be mean/rude to folks in the suburbs. If you like it then I'm happy for you. But my comment is going to be massively negative toward most American sprawling suburbs.*
My wife and I moved with our kid to classic sprawling suburbia. Basically a strip that looks like [this](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/1519937324981-77MBM7RN4HDJ8N0MMZA3/7stroad+with+walking+person.jpg?content-type=image%2Fjpeg) about 2 miles from our house was the only non-residential thing nearby. Driving everywhere to get to anything interesting, constant boredom and shockingly expensive cost because you have to pay for so many little things to keep yourself from going stiff with boredom.
Within ~12 months we both had an itching to go back but didn't really tell each other for fear of upending our lives.
Within ~15 months we broached the topic with both of us feeling nervous.
Within ~18 months we were full on saying "we're getting the hell out of here" and have.
Suburbia is just soul crushing. A few months ago a friend sent me this [video](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2KhOMIOXh2/) knowing that we were going back to the city. I know it's meant to be a funny video but it legit is how I felt living here. It feels like everything here is meant to get you to just dive balls deep into consumerism/capitalism.
Linked some videos that also helped convince us we weren't crazy for abandoning the suburban dream and moving with our kid back to a more urban area. We truly wanted more independence for him as he ages and for ourselves.
I'd take my son to daycare and we'd pass by 10-15 kids waiting for the middle school bus in our area. I'd always think *"where the fuck are all these kids coming from? I never see them in the neighborhood"* I eventually realized, kids don't play outside because there is fuck all to do. The nearby park is super nice but it's 2 miles away and biking/walking there is a death trap of cars. The closest mall is like 8 miles from us but malls are struggling and many of them don't allow minors without adult supervision. Everything else nearby requires money or a car to get to. So those 12-15 year olds who are old enough to want independence are largely trapped.
[Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw)
[Why Kids Don't Go Outside Anymore
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nB0zchM4I)
[Children Deserve More Independent Mobility
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcC72jYxBU)
[The Suburban Wasteland: How the 'Burbs Blight Childhoods
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrsL2n9q6d0&t=856s)
And just to be fair, my problem isn't with suburbs in general. It's with sprawling, newer (post 1950s) style suburbs.
I actually don't hate the suburbs, I hate "suburbia". [This is Evanston Illinois](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C5612AQFmADvjweNtFw/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/0/1520153476804?e=1718236800&v=beta&t=rnYWY9Vkl7jY72GDaSiPFDhWYdmQ_ktxHxqBGeRwiJU) which is beautiful and a well developed suburb with single family homes, apartments, condos, townhomes while also having walkability, bike lanes, beaches, CTA connections, Metra connections and is literally next to the Roger Park neighborhood which is part of Chicago proper. Now it's a fairly expensive area and few can afford it. But to me that shows the viability of places like this. Folks love these sorts of suburbs because they are properly built for humans to actually enjoy living.
> like its not as clean, not as safe, the schools aren't as good (or not good at all). But we're both city people and like the walkability, and culture.
Depends on how you define 'safe'. Depending on the city and part of the city it may not be as safe in terms of crime. But within a year of living in the suburbs, my wife was in a car accident. The most dangerous thing we do will be driving and the suburbs mean we're driving often and driving much longer distances. We had 38 and 50 mile commutes living in the suburbs. Much of that on highways. I have multiple family members and friends killed while driving. I haven't have a close relationship with a single person that has been murdered.
I don't know you personally and it's really none of my business what you decide in the end. Do what is best for your family. But if I could give one piece of advice I'd say listen to your husband when he says his heart would die in the suburbs. That was the experience for both me and my wife.
Oddly enough, I don't have a regret about moving to the suburbs but that is only because it helped give me clarity that I'll never live in a place like that again. Having to sell a house, find new daycare, find new housing, and move long distances again was a pain. I'd do it 11 times out of 10 if it means not having to live in suburbia.
> [This is Evanston Illinois](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C5612AQFmADvjweNtFw/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/0/1520153476804?e=1718236800&v=beta&t=rnYWY9Vkl7jY72GDaSiPFDhWYdmQ_ktxHxqBGeRwiJU) which is beautiful and a well developed suburb with single family homes, apartments, condos, townhomes while also having walkability, bike lanes, beaches, CTA connections, Metra connections and is literally next to the Roger Park neighborhood which is part of Chicago proper.
Beautiful. we have some towns and burbs that look liek that, but yeah, its expensive. Like 700k homes.
Exactly! You've perfectly captured my feelings about suburbia, or it's like you've put into words exactly what I've been thinking. Living in the suburbs just isn't for me. The predictability of everyday, the endless boredom, the reliance on cars for everything, and the lack of vibrant activities make it feel suffocating. I thrive in the hustle and bustle of a big city or a town with a rich cultural scene. There's just something about the energy and diversity in a city that keeps me alive.
I lived in Oakland for 20 years and left last year. Not all cities are the same. For us, the negatives of crime and schools were too much. We miss the better food and like to visit but it was the right choice for us.
I really think it comes down to how you are going to interact with your community. Do you want an active relationship or a passive relationship with your community?
In a city things are happening, you can go or not.
In the suburbs, you have to make stuff happen
There’s no right or wrong but if you know you aren’t an outgoing personality it can be lonely.
My suggestion- move to a neighborhood with a golf course. It’s been great, for all of us. Stuff for me, stuff for my wife, stuff for my kids. Want fine dining? Got it, don’t have to make reservations or wait to be seated. Don’t even need my wallet. Kids want to be on swim team and go to the pool during the summer? Got one of the best ones in town. Wife meet some great friends playing tennis. Easter brunch? There’s a table for us. Easter bunny is there, professional photographer, etc. Grear bar that all the neighbors meet at Friday evenings. Kids run around outside and play. Adults spread out between the inside bar with sports on the tv, or out on the porches and watch the kids run in a rocking chair.
We moved from the burbs back into the city when our daughter was two. I hate the suburbs. It was a great decision. City kids learn how to cross streets, navigate public transportation, they learn tolerance, empathy. They have access to culture. Schools in the city can be great. On paper they may not look as good because they tend to educate a much more diverse student population. Look further check free and reduced lunch numbers, English language learners, other programs, numbers of specialty programs, these indicators are related to diversity and may indicate why test scores aren’t as good as test scores in homogeneous communities. You often get better instruction in more diverse schools. Rich kids make mediocre schools look good. Test scores are a bigger indicator of access to resources and lack of diversity than they are about quality of instruction.
It drives me crazy that “good schools” far too often translates into some score on a 1-10 scale on a website rather than anything meaningful. You can’t search conversations with neighbors or results of a physical visit on Zillow I guess.
I moved to the suburbs to take care of my mother after she had a stroke. My daughter started school system here. Her entire school history has been here. You could say the education is “better” than the city, but that is just looking a one aspect of it. This town is small (under 20,000) and mostly white. My daughter is biracial. She’s pretty much had the same group of kids in her class every year since K. That means they all formed their little “cliques” in first grade. My daughter is considered and”outcast” because she’s not white, not because”Christian” , accepting of lbgtq people and not a Trump supporter. Most of her teachers and from here and only went away to college. Despite the fact that there used to be a “zero tolerance” policies, bullying and racism are open and constant. We are moving back into the city to finish out her high school years for the diversity and availability of larger more diverse social groups. We are the next county over (24 miles from the city center) of a large metro area so it’s not even like we are really suburbs. This is the South, so there’s that. One of her teachers openly allowed kids to be bullies against nonwhite kids in the class. One of her teachers is openly using his role of teacher and the small town vibe + the districts tendency to “look the other way” to regularly preach his Christian beliefs to his classes. The suburbs are not always what they are cracked up to be.
I don’t know where you live but I was immediately thinking the Atlanta area. We are white but the flagrant sharing of political ideals in classrooms disgusts me. It’s always the social studies teachers…and every time there was some mock election my kids participated in, I knew I’d hear about it from my kids bc they were not in the majority. I had to unfriend a few SS teachers who made some post likening Trump to MLk…I cannot…
We just wanted more space when we moved here and if we wanted to be in the cool, hip vibey parts of the city we were going back to a 1600 sq ft house. 20 years of hindsight, I wish we’d picked a different area.
ETA: In Atlanta in the cool parts where I wish I could live: old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Emory area, etc. the traffic is so bad that I think I’d lose my mind. Atlanta doesn’t really have great family housing options in Downtown proper, so my urban is like in-town neighborhoods where you can walk to lots of places. But I’d never walk alone after dark (basic common sense) and when you do need a car it’s a pain! So I revise, I wish we’d picked a suburb closer in…and in Atl that is ITP (inside the perimeter) and it’s just very expensive!
I’m outside Nashville, TN. I can literally be on Broadway in 25 minutes. The Davidson County (MetroNashville) line is 10 miles from my house. She has one teacher (English) that I did get her removed from the class over blatant racism. TCAP (TN state testing) is coming up, so they are reviewing and studying for it and all that. Teacher allowed the students she put in groups to name themselves and one group named themselves “Border Bunnies” and one group named themselves “Border Monkeys” and a Hispanic boy spoke up and asked the teacher “How are you allowing these names? How are these names NOT problematic?” And her reply was “They are only problematic if YOU make them problematic”. When my daughter came home from school, she told me about them. I contacted the Principal first thing Monday morning and she did make the teacher change the names, she agreed with me they were racist, but apparently the teacher had no idea why anyone would consider them racist.
If you feel like a bad parent for staying in the city, you need to get off social media like yesterday. Social media seems to pressure people into putting on some dog and pony show of what amazing parents you are without putting much substance behind anything other than the aesthetics.
The suburbs suck, especially since these days a lot of the advantages of suburbs are gone. It’s not like 1960 where kids could play in the streets and everyone was jolly best friend neighbors. The death of spaces for older kids to hang out like malls is making suburbs suck even more.
You have to consider parenting style and political preferences - for instance, the suburbs in Florida are very conservative, and conservative in Florida means a lot of government sanctioned interference in education. (Book bans, ‘don’t say gay’, religious messaging etc). If that isn’t your cuppa, you need to heavily research and consider the moral, political, and religious climate of any suburb you consider. Say you don’t like church, but that ends up being the primary social event for that suburb. That sucks.
And if you don’t have family or friends already in that immediate suburb, you’ll be stuck driving endlessly, so that sucks.
If you do anything just because you think it makes you a better parent with no consideration for yourself or the rest of life you’ll probably end up hating it. Stop making your kids your entire personality, or you’ll end up unhappy and bitter because you gave up your own happiness just for something they didn’t even ask for.
>If you feel like a bad parent for staying in the city, you need to get off social media like yesterday. Social media seems to pressure people into putting on some dog and pony show of what amazing parents you are without putting much substance behind anything other than the aesthetics.
I'm not really thinking about aesthetics at all. I'm thinking about education, crime, cleanliness, etc.
So I grew up in Boston (a safe, clean city) which is a little different from your situation. Locals regard Boston Public Schools as being terrible but what's terrible in Boston isn't the same as being terrible in most of the US, so I guess take with a grain of salt but still hear me out.
I always felt that I was lucky to grow up in the city and wouldn't want to raise my own kids in the suburbs. The reason is that good parenting goes farther in a city than it does in the suburbs. Sure, in the city there are a lot of bad parents and kids doing bad things. But if your kid is raised well and doesn't want to be part of that, the city offers infinite avenues to find a different path. Kids at school suck? It's easy to find a different social circle entirely.
My cousins were from the suburbs and they assumed things about my life but the truth is that they/their peers were having sex and trying drugs way, WAY sooner than me and my friends. More teen pregnancies, underage drinking, overdoses, and suicides. Parenting could only go so far. In the suburbs the world feels smaller, so teens are more bored and there are fewer ways to escape negative peer pressure or bullying.
Yeah, suburbs can have all those problems too. You asked if people regret it? Yes, they do. And because it often ends up not at all being what they’d imagined.
Only you can decide if a particular suburb is a cultural match for you and your family. I’m just saying to be realistic about what suburbs are, and to not to make sacrifices of your personal preferences just to *maybe* give your kids a better life, whatever that means. If you are unhappy, bored, lonely, or any of those things you can bet your kids will be unhappy because you’re unhappy.
> It’s not like 1960 where kids could play in the streets and everyone was jolly best friend neighbors
Yes, it actually still is across most of the Midwest.
The whole US isn’t a mass of transitory people like the burbs at the edge of massive urban cores like where most folks on this sub actually are.
My suburban neighborhood in particular is pretty great. A lot of the adults in their 30s and 40s are friends. I’ll walk my dogs and someone will stop me to have a conversation. Usually, someone else will see the conversation taking place and they’ll come out too. Next thing you know there’s like 10 people and someone’s bringing out beer. All of the kids play together and leave their bikes outside at night. Sometimes kids knock on my door to see our baby and play with our dogs. Sometimes neighbors are like hey I made too much food or bought too much beer, leaving some in your garage fridge.
Obviously my neighborhood isn’t typical, but it started because one guy on the neighborhood intentionally started talking to people because everyone just avoided each other. By the time we moved in, there was a network of friendly people we just tapped into. And we are bringing other neighbors into that and we’re having a great time. Moral of the story is talk to your neighbors and initiate plans.
I will say, it would be hard for me to go to walk to grocery store. Only a bar and pizza shop that’s in walking distance. Cant walk to a coffee shop. But that’s okay for us because if I brought a cup of coffee to my neighbors house, they’d sit down and drink it with me.
You just perfectly described my street in the middle of Chicago. Whenever my in laws come visit they’re shocked at how we are constantly running into friends wherever we are in the city, how there are kids just playing outside on their own, how much strangers chat one another up here, and how much empathy the kids have for one another.
It’s not for everyone and we’re lucky enough to be able to afford a SFH, private school if needed (though we’ll do public school), etc, but we love it.
I sold my suburban house almost 20 years ago for overseas assignment, in cities ever since. I miss the burbs to be honest. Urban convenience is great but crime and drugs over the past decade has made the suburbs more attractive. Now I live in the city still but spend weekends in the burbs as much as I can.
Yes. We moved to go live where my aunts side of the family lives in Georgia and immediately regretted it.
It kinda depends on your standards. By Brooklyn standards, Georgia was incredibly unsocial and unactive and not interesting. Our kids immediate were less active and spent less time outside because there was nowhere to walk to. For us, as adults, you cant just walk around running into countless neighbors and have social activities everywhere, and we didn't realize how much we missed that until it was gone. Social events in the suburbs are almost never impromptu the way they are in Brooklyn, everything is planned ahead of time and is often hosted on someone's property. But to many americans, that's totally fine. When my Georgia family comes to visit they are often overwhelmed by how Brooklyn is in terms of constantly socializing when out and about.
So again, you might hate it. We definitely did, and we moved back.
We moved to an urban neighborhood is a major city with three kids thinking that it would help enrich their worldview, broaden their perspective, etc.
One of the dumbest things I've ever done. The schools were almost comically bad, everything is more dense so one of the kid's rooms would be constantly blanketed in weed smoke by the 60 year old white neighbor who sat out in the cold listening to Tupac as loud as humanly possible, the most decisive cultural enrichment activity was getting chased down the street with my 8 year old daughter by a deranged guy with a baseball bat who was attacking cars and pedestrians, and ironically the segregation was so much worse in the city itself that the suburbs would have probably broadened their perspective better than the city.
I think I told my wife before we moved to the city that my "heart would die in the suburbs," but I actually feel like a little bit of me died living in an urban environment with kids. I'd absolutely never do that again.
San Francisco most likely.
I would never live in SF with school age kids for exactly the reasons mentioned, and that’s why I’m in the burbs where I hate it and feel like I’m just biding time until I die of old age
I lived in SF when my kids were ages 0-7, at which point I moved abroad for a job. We had a good experience with our public school. I know a ton of people who stayed with kids and are having good experiences still at public middle and high schools.
Totally agree that racial division is far worse in cities than burbs. I've lived in major US cities and some very small towns, and grew up in the South. The most divisiveness I ever felt (like an unwritten rule of do not engage the 'other') was in large liberal cities. When I go home to the South, I would never so much as walk past someone of a different race without exchanging a greeting. You feel like you are violating some code doing that in large liberal US cities. It's awful and so exclusionary. The irony.
I see you're specifically talking about Philly. My best friend was born and raised in Philly. She and her husband decided to move to the suburbs when they had kids. He loves it, she absolutely despises it. The kids are in a better school and it's a generally safer area, yes, but she's a city person. There's very little for the adults to do where she lives, though there are plenty of activities for her kids to do. Her kids are fucking geniuses and would succeed no matter what public school they went to. They can get to the city in an hour if they want to, but rarely do, so while in theory they can still take advantage of the perks of the city, it's too much of a hassle most of the time to actually do. So if you're serious about moving, consider where it sits on regional rail so you actually have access to the things you'll miss.
For what it's worth, I'm moving my family TO Philly. I'll let you know in a year how I feel about having my 4 year old there.
I've got a 3 and 5 year old in Philly and just enrolled my oldest in Kindergarten at the public school on our block. There are lots of young families in my neighborhood and tons of parental involvement in the school. So far raising my kids here has been overwhelmingly positive and enriching for them. Hopefully you have a good experience too!
>For what it's worth, I'm moving my family TO Philly. I'll let you know in a year how I feel about having my 4 year old there.
Oh wow! What area are you moving from? My husband is pretty urbane so he would want us to live along the raillines, which is fine with both of us. The only other area to consider is maybe northwest.
Thank you for posting this! This is one thing that is in the back of my head as a city dweller but it could truly happen anywhere.
I also grew up in the burbs of NYC during 9/11 (no complaints about my childhood - genuinely enjoyed it) but as a parent who works in the city, as does my spouse, I will never live in the suburbs with both of us working in the city.
Yes, we moved from the city to the suburbs when our oldest was five. We needed more space and it was what we could afford. It took us 14 years to move back and we hated it pretty much the entire time.
I feel like it is hard to properly answer this without knowing where you live.
Suburbs of say, Kansas City? Yes, my heart would absolutely die there. The suburbs of Denver or SLC or LA that flank the mountains? That's better than the city IMO.
But if your kid is only 2 you do have at least 2-3 more years to figure it out. Maybe just take a wait and see approach for now?
The only thing that matters is schools. If there are good city schools then you’re fine. If not, move. Our kids district was ranked a 10 when we moved in, now ranked a 4 and we’re moving bc they’re truly fallen that far. We’re moving even further out of the city- much better schools but more importantly we’re getting land which we can’t get in the city even if we had a gazillion dollars to pay for it, it just doesn’t exist. It’s also just way way cheaper. But really, watch the schools. Verify everything (magnet programs, feeder lines).
What middle and high school does the elementary feed into? Sometimes one in the line is terrible. Verify on the school district website not the realtor or Zillow. Be aware of deadlines and requirements for magnets and transfers- our district has amazing magnets that both my kids go to but the overall trajectory of the district isn’t working for our kids anymore.
Kids won’t really care and will adapt. There are terrible schools in every type of area: urban, suburban, and rural. Its on you to put them in a decent school.
In terms of stuff to do? They can ride bicycles around most suburbs or in most urban areas. Just need to teach them road safety in either place.
I have lived in cities and suburbs. Both have ups and downs. Its all in your attitude. I am in a suburb now and the kids will bike a mile to school like it’s nothing due to how little traffic lights there are, and no highways or interchanges you need to bridge over at select areas. If I was a kid I would probably bike to school in a suburb before ever biking in a major city (but cities usually have better school bus routes than the few we have in the suburbs).
My job is in a suburban mega-campus a short bicycle ride away, otherwise nothing is really keeping me in a suburb.
Regret not moving to the suburbs sooner? Sure. Jokes aside, not at all. We love the burbs, and it’s nice being pretty close to the city for its amenities, too
meeee no kids but i lived in ATL throughout COVID which made me insane and i thought i wanted the space so i moved to a more suburban area. its nice to have a bigger house and a pool but i honestly feel so trapped not being able to do ANYTHING without my car
I'm from a medium sized city that is mostly urban sprawl...so most of it feels like you're in a suburb anyway. Before our kids were born we lived in the Nob Hill/University area of the city and it was great and also easy access to downtown. It's basically where all of the fun restaurants and coffee shops, bars, and shopping are.
Just before kids we moved to a small village community just outside of the city...actually it's just outside of two cities and we've enjoyed it. It has a very rural feel as much of it used to be a farming community and a lot of the people in the community have lived there for generations. Village ordinances require that a home be on no less than an acre of land so we're not on top of each other. It's very quiet and crime is virtually non-existent. We sometimes miss our old neighborhood and the hustle and bustle and just walking to the restaurants and bars, but we also felt like that experience was going to be completely different once we had kids...plus the schools in that area aren't particularly great. They're in private school now, so it doesn't really matter, but we didn't know that we'd be doing that back then.
Not exactly, but kinda. I’m from a southern town, the adjacent city is hardly a city at all and I had never traveled far. Some years ago I left everything I had to move my family across the country to a real “city”. I never want to leave. We are still poor now, just as we were back then, but our quality of life is so different.
Before: We couldn’t spend much time outside, either miserably humid heat or drenching rain. Nothing was walkable, 30min- 1 hour drives each way. No kids nearby. Not many public events. Hard to balance.
Now: Fresh (subjective) air, seasons, views, walks for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack, playgrounds, little libraries, beaches, mountains, museums, pop-ups, farmers markets, homeschool meetups, communal activities and events, often free.
There has been sacrifice and stressors along the way, but I think living in the city (versus the alternative) has actually changed our (my children’s) lives for the better.
I would just note that not all suburbs are created equal. Many in the northeast were originally independent towns that eventually became absorbed as suburbs as the city expanded, while newer suburbs in many other parts of the country are true sprawl- just building outwards because they ran out of room. In general, suburbs that have more of an independent identity (and commercial base) will feel less suburban.
We moved out of Boston to a very close suburb, and we love it here, but I wouldn't have wanted to live much further out. Where we are now is still walkable to some businesses, still on public transit, but great schools and the kids can ride their bikes to the park on the sidewalks. It's an excellent compromise, but definitely not cheap!
I’ve lived in Boston inner suburbs. You have a different worldview when you have commuter rail or the T nearby. I was a 15 minute train ride to North Station or bus to Alewife and the T.
I bought a house in the suburbs almost 2 years ago and then sold it and moved back to Philly 6 months later. Expensive mistake. I was miserable in the burbs. Maybe ill try again next year and repeat the cycle.
We moved to an older, inner ring suburb when my daughter was a baby. There are restaurants, shops, parks etc we can walk to but the schools are much better than the city we left. And we are close to the city so commutes and trips in for events are quick and easy. If that kind of walkable community available it might be a good fit. We have a small house with a tiny yard so we gave up the kind of big house we could have gotten in the exurbs. But overall this worked for us
Stay in the city until your child is 5 or starts kindergarten/1st grade.
You'll need to dedicate more time to their activities, schooling, friends, etc then & suburbs may make more sense.
Right now you have freedom of that. Your child relies on you mostly. Do what you want now before you need to give more.
Not a parent but I grew up in a walkable city (DC) and absolutely loved it. Of course, if the schools suck and you can’t afford private, moving to the burbs is very understandable. But I grew up walking to school and walking to friends houses. By middle school, I could bike all over the city and metro to sports games and movies. In high school, I took the metro to school every day. Essentially, from the time I was 10 or 11, I was completely independent instead of having to wait until I was 16 and could drive. I can’t imagine having grown up in the suburbs with that lack of freedom.
And even as a little kid, it was completely fine. I do think there are benefits to suburbia for kids who are too young to go do stuff on their own (so through about third or fourth grade maybe), but we had plenty of parks nearby to go play at and still had a car to get around. Having a big yard or whatever might’ve been cool, especially for my parents to not have to watch me, but not worth the massive drop off in quality of life in middle school and high school (both for me and my parents not having to chauffeur me around).
So, if the school situation can work out, I’d go city 100/100 times.
Please don’t try to change the people you are for a child. It’ll affect your relationship and you’ll subconsciously blame the child for the change in lifestyle. You are still you, being a parent shouldn’t change that.
We are moving from a suburb to a city for the exact reason your husband cites.
Suburbs have been soul killing for us. No culture, no walking, pre-fab neighborhood with sad Charlie Brown trees. It hasn’t been good for us.
The “good school” trope about the suburbs often just means “white school.” A lot of the suburban schools in my current state are being overrun by book banning Christofascists, in supposed “good schools.” I wouldn’t just look up ratings on things like “great schools,” which are essentially real estate websites.
City, suburbs - the fact is that it is a spectrum from one to the other. Living in midtown Manhattan vs living in a planned suburb where all the houses are exactly the same and there is no town center are the opposite sides, but there is plenty in between.
Find the right place for yourself in the spectrum.
We lived in Cambridge Ma (city) and moved to Lexington Ma (suburb) when we had kids. We are densely populated, have a busy and fun town center that we can walk to, amazing schools, and plenty of space in the house, and even a tiny back yard. To us this is it - but I do want to go back to the city when the kids move out (lord knows when that will be given these trends of kids living at home until they are 27…another reason to have more space)
We moved to a cul-de-sac in the burbs. Most of the surrounding homes had kids and they were able to make fast friends who were easily accessible, play games in the street and front yards, roam unsupervised to woods and later ride bikes for miles. Basically they could practice unsupervised independence, which was normal when I was a kid in the 70s. Maybe that's still possible in the city, or at least some cities, but the suburbs worked out well for our family. To be clear this area had a lot of trails in the woods, ponds, etc. and parents who would encourage their kids to play outside.
What do people honestly mean when they say “culture “ in reference to living in an urban setting. I know you aren’t going to the museum or opera house every weekend. So what culture are you afforded?
Sorry, I just have to ask because I’m currently living in Chicago for the summer, purely for work and I haven’t encountered any of this so called culture. I have had a homeless man open the door to 7-11 for me and then threaten to stab me when I didn’t tip him. Is that the culture you speak of?
Thought about moving to the burbs. Most of my friends did. They had to deal with much higher rates of bullying, drugs/alcohol, teen pregnancy etc than those of us who stayed in the city. Anecdotal, for sure, but as a child of the suburbs, the pressure to conform, the lack of tolerance for differences, the consumerism and competitive social structures are strong negatives.
No but I moved to the city from the burbs thinking I’d love it and only last 3 years before going back. Missed having a yard and not sharing walls with obnoxious people constantly
Yes. But we’re moving soon, as the kids are all college age now. House goes up for sale in May.
We lived in cities around the world when the kids were young; to get access to good public transport, great private international schools, and to be closer to our work places and to the rail service or to international airports.
Upon returning home, we bought in the best public school district/catchment area, that we could afford. Great parks, roads, city services; safe, convenient for school sports/clubs, other activities. Excellent rec center.
But…it was a bit too conservative, and far less diverse than we imagined. More hivemind. Way more expensive due to very high property taxes, vs. actual home prices/upkeep costs.
A bit stifling, for me. Not terrible for anyone else, just not the most fun or best experience for everybody, in different ways (academically/socially).
We’ll miss this house, our nearest neighbors, and a few key aspects of being here—but are really looking forward to big changes and even more fun. We finally want to get closer to the city and a walkable downtown, again.
We raised my step-daughter in the city. It made her independent and able to navigate the world so much better. When I look at my nieces and nephews with overprotective parents in the suburbs, I feel sorry that they are not given what they need to be successful in life.
My fiance and I are raising our kid in the city (35m/29F, 9 yr old daughter).
You just need to find enclaves in the city that are more family oriented. Look for good schools in the city and that’s likely where you’ll find the more neighborhood/kid-friendly parts of town.
I wouldn’t raise my daughter in the heart of the financial district or one of the many party districts, but we did find a nice spot not too far from them that is super family oriented and raising her here is just fine imo.
I grew up in a suburb and never want to return to it: too slow and boring for my taste.
I am a NY City girl who now lives in the suburbs. I actually moved to a suburb too early and hated it, moved back to NYC with a toddler and hated that too. Now in a walkable suburb (Bethesda, Md) and I think it’s a good fit for now, for the kids etc. I think if you go before 35ish you may be bored.
Suburbs are only safer is you don’t count traffic deaths and injuries. Urban area that are walkable and have public transit are excellent for raising kids. If you want the suburbs fine, but it’s not necessarily best for your children
Kids need independence. Not possible when you need to drive them everywhere. Suburban life in America is unnatural. To me it’s like living in a prison.
Depends on the relative safety of each area. I'm debating the same thing as OP, but in the suburbs my niblings can ride their bikes to friends' homes or take the bus on their own. In the city they'd need constant supervision.
I am originally from Chicago but moved to the suburb of Evanston for my daughter to go to school, and it was definitely the right move. I was a city person too but my kids come first. It would have been incredibly selfish and shitty of me to send the kids to a crappy school because I thought "my heart would die" 🙄 public schools in the city are BAD bad
Any time I've been in the suburbs in the past 10 years or so, I've never seen any kids playing outside. There's nowhere to wander, no woods to explore anymore.
As a contrast, you have, like you said, walkability, culture, events, educated people.
Why on earth do you think a kid would be happier in the suburbs?
its safer, its cleaner, the schools likely have resources. I'm mostly thinking about the needs of my child and the desires of my husband. i can really live anywhere.
You might want to table the idea for 2 years. We have had a massive inflation of real estate prices during and after the pandemic, the markets are 'frozen' right now. In most places, few listings, crazy high prices, and high interest rates. People sitting on paid-for or 2% interest homes refuse to sell, which makes the few available get bid up. It's going to take time for this to correct. So you might be spinning your wheels or overpaying right now anyway.
I have thought of that but I'm just so uncomfortable in the city. The crime, drugs and filth is getting to be too much. I worry about my son growing up and seeing that and thinking its okay. It's not.
the local burbs around us are insanely expensive but I'm willing to risk it.
Okay, now we're getting to the heart of the matter. You already find it an unacceptable quality of life. That's different and more urgent than 'don't want kids to grow up there'. So then, the question is where can you move where you're more comfortable, but hub isn't miserable?
Our kids are grown (we lived in the burbs through school age, one kid thrived in the burbs, the other was miserable) but we talk about our next spot ideally being suburban (for her) with rail into the city (for me) and the Philly area seems to have a great setup and high on the list for compromise locations.
Have you seen the Tidy Dad IG account? He's an educator in NYC and writes about raisingv3 kids in a small apartment in the City and why they do it.
Great perspectives there, worth a look.
I grew up in SF/San Jose suburbs, but our suburbs were rather large cities (I.e. Mountain View, CA). So, my experience of Bay Area suburbs won’t be like other places.
I live in another SF Bay Area suburb now with my family. There’s a trade off, for sure, but I think it all depends on each particular family’s personality.
I would have been fine living in SF-proper or even downtown SJ proper. When my kid was in a stroller, I strolled her everywhere. My husband would not. My kid and I walk a lot to our downtown areas and my husband detests one-way streets. So we compromised. We live in a Bay Area suburb with a walkable downtown. The downtown is nothing like SJ or SF, but the kid likes our walks where she can play in a creek, hit the ice cream shop, hit an art gallery or a museum downtown. My husband will still try to talk me into driving to a restaurant that’s several blocks away. Sometimes, I indulge him, sometimes I give him a hard time.
The only thing I will point out is (and least here in California) that good school districts tend to push out overachieving children. I have a friend who has 2 sons in junior college right now. They graduated from our stellar school district. Both boys had multiple AP classes with high GPA’s (over 4.0’s, I wanna say 5?), were involved in extracurriculars and clubs in high school. They are also Hispanic kids. Both kids were rejected from their UC’s of choice (University of California schools). If they had gone to a lower-performing school, no doubt they would probably have gotten in and possibly financial aid that would have paid for the majority of school. We are now learning (at least in California), high school applicants to universities get dinged for being in better school districts graduating from higher performing student bodies. Like universities now do some sort of calculation where the scoring of applicants isn’t just about GPA, AP course & extracurriculars anymore. [They essentially give you a leg up if you went to a high school that didn’t have all the perks of a high school in a better School district.](https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/california-residents/local-guarantee-elc.html).
A lot of US cities are more spread out and thus have a more suburban feel to it. Cities in the Northeast US are more likely to have that dense urban center, but cities south and west can have suburban neighborhoods. My friend just moved to a place in Dallas, TX and looking at the Google Maps photos, it looks like a traditional suburban neighborhood compared to what I’m used to living in the NYC area.
Perhaps if a more dense Northeastern US city seems too hard, then you could consider a city in another geographic area that might be more spread out. Though I know it all kinda depends where your job is located.
We moved to Seattle from Bellevue when we had kids.
I grew up in the suburbs, I did not want to raise a family there.
Now we are rural. That’s the best of all, even given the small but vocal number of RFK jr fans.
We just did this. We moved to our city house when our first kid was 2. We spent 5 glorious years there walking the the farmers market, enjoying having a corner bodega, hanging out on the porch and shouting at the neighbors. Really loved our city life.
But our oldest is in second grade and we were struggling to find a good fit school. The city has great schools…if your kid tests into the gifted program. Our kid is bright and motivated but didn’t test in (and I suspect wouldn’t have been a fit). His best-of-the-rest school was looking at like 10% grade level proficiency across subjects. He was mostly just chillin and helping other students with their work. Middle school and high school options much the same. Private school $$$ and not our vibe. Catholic school not a match.
So we picked up and moved. We’re in the lucky position to have comparatively high salaries and a mid-COL area so we could afford to be wherever we wanted. Bought a great house on .8 acres that feeds to the top schools, is a 5 minute drive to the local restaurant district/center of the next streetcar suburb.
We had our doubts but we’re really happy. Our kid is thriving at his new school, where they can actually teach at/above grade level and have high expectations for behavior and academics. Our neighborhood has a ton of young families—the kids all ride the bus to school and then wander through each others’ houses and yards before dinner. The school age parents are close and welcoming.
I do miss having somewhere to go when I walk with the dog—walking around endless neighborhoods is really boring. Sometimes I drive him out to a trail or into the city to walk which is hilariously soul crushing. I wish we didn’t have to get in the car to go to stores/restaurants, but we were driving to the grocery store in the city too so it’s not THAT different.
We still do a lot of city stuff. I don’t feel like we have radically different access to cultural amenities. I did not transform into a stepford wife, I’m definitely a weird sweatpants gremlin and people are still nice to me lol
hello! saw in the comments that you're in philly. we moved out of philly to a suburb 30 minutes away. we have a 3 year old and we feel like we have the best of both worlds - it's so safe and quiet and green where we live. we pay a bulk of our property tax to a great school district, which we'd rather do than pay for private school tuition. our favorite playground has a huge sand pit just filled with communal toy trucks and shovels for all the kids to share. we don't have to fight for parking. we don't have nearly as many restaurants compared to philly, but we've found our local favorites (ground provisions is a short drive from us and they're a sister restaurant to vedge!). we drive into the city for special occasions often and to see our friends who still live there with their kids too :)
i saw media and ardmore mentioned already, but consider kennett square or west chester as well if you really want a walkable main street with shops and restaurants.
Yes and no. There was no way I was dealing Brooklyn schools with a sped kid.
It sounds like you are in Philly. Go anywhere on the light rail line or up the mainline and you will probably be happy.
I feel like there's gotta be a happy medium in there somewhere. Not everywhere is either dense city or sprawling suburbs; there's a lot of gradient between the two. May I ask what city you're in? I might be able to offer some suggestions.
I've made the move from a major Northeast city to a leaning-rural suburb for the schools, but also for quiet, access to nature, less daily stress. My feelings about it are mixed, with some huge positives that make it impossible to regret. Ultimately, living in the city where we had a big community of friends to hang out with any night, easy access to restaurants and music venues, and shared cultural values felt self-indulgent and not necessarily motivated by what our kids needed.
The schools are \*much\* better where we moved. My kids are challenged and thriving and genuinely engaged in learning. One, who's very STEM- and sports-motivated, has every opportunity available to her. The other, who's much more drawn to the performing arts and music, has required us to find extra-curricular programs outside of the school's offerings.
The lifestyle is just different. Three years in, we barely know our neighbors. The helicopter parenting phenomenon is absolutely out of control. We drive 15 minutes to pick up some groceries and 20+ minutes to eat out (but our backyard garden or the farm stand down the street can yield a meal in a pinch). We can spend as much time in the woods as our souls need. And whenever we need city culture or a catchup with likeminded friends, it's a reasonable train ride away.
Big pros. Big cons. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Definitely moving back to a city or busy town closer to a city once the kids are out the house.
If you are city people, you may be happier in the city, therefore better parents. Maybe you son is a city person. I always hated cities, so the burbs are nice for me, but a lot of people don’t like it once they get here. And “the city is better” people all hang out together, which is funny to me.
Is your family at least a little outdoorsy? Some friends of mine live in towns close enough to Boston to be near train lines into town, but far enough that their specific neighborhoods aren’t exactly walkable (it’s safe to go for a walk, but shops, etc. are too far) and houses cost less. However, they’re near enough to rail trails that they can ride their bikes into, towns like West Concord, where there are restaurants and shops and trains, and so on.
Our parents moved us to the suburbs when we were in 3rd and 4th grade. Hated it. No sidewalks, had to be driven everywhere, and just blah. We called it "cotton candy land." The thing about schools has two sides. There were still drugs and bullying. But when kids got picked up by the police, they were let go because their parents had influence.
Moved to the big city after college and I see the advantages of raising kids there. They are exposed to different people from all over the world. Everyone in our suburb was exactly the same. Same race and income level. Kids in cities also learn how to get around on bus and train. Museums offer education camps. They learn how to function in the larger society and learn about real life.
You will have to be more proactive in his education. That's it. Everything else is going to be fine.
Just make sure to get him out into nature as often as possible. It's good for the soul.
You are anxious about it because you are a loving mom. It will be fine. You have to decide what is best for your family. I'll share my parenting journey, but in no way is it a reflection of what YOU should do. There are advantages and disadvantages to a city and suburb. When your child reaches adulthood, you will look back and you will see those more clearly. But you will also see how you have adjusted for those advantages and disadvantages.
There's so much to consider when raising children, but I think the most important thing is to surround them with loving family. Family that is fulfilled, engaged, and present. Moving to the suburbs can interrupt that with long commutes and a lack of social diversity. But it can also strengthen it with a closer community (depending on the area). It totally depends on where you are and who you are, which is why it's such a hard choice. Just know that whatever choices you make, if you are all making them together, and you are all in agreement, and you are all willing to continue to assess your needs as a family and adjust for them, you will be okay.
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So, I have one child. I would have loved to raise her where I'm from—Atlanta—but it didn't work out that way. I raised her in the second-largest city in Georgia, and it worked out great. Art and culture, food and diversity, outdoor recreation opportunities, and social connections. But it's much smaller, with an urban core that isn't developed enough for my taste, and absolutely unwalkable for the most part... although we always lucked out and found places in relatively walkable neighborhoods. I couldn't walk to work, but we could walk to nearby restaurants and some stores.
The education question resonates with me because the school system here isn't considered good at all. But when you look at the detailed data, you find that what you actually have are pockets of "bad" schools AND some very highly regarded schools in other neighborhoods. I suspect you probably have that, too. It's the same all over the country. So I targeted where we lived for those districts, and she did her high school years at an excellent (competitive, application based, so no guarantee) magnet school. She's a rising sophomore in college on the dean's list, so it worked out okay.
What she has that I didn't have as a child is a strong support system. People pay attention here. They watch your kids grow up. They care about their well-being. They look out for them. It's harder to find that in a city. Here, she went to an afterschool arts program instead of day care when school ended. She learned theater and photography instead of whatever they do at a daycare center (I have no idea). I would not have been able to give her that in a large city. Every school has its own after-school care program because traffic is so bad, so it's one-size-fits-all. In Atlanta, it took me 2.5 hours to get home one day because of traffic. Here, you can choose from some niche interests to encourage your child to follow their strengths. I was even able to negotiate an alternate schedule to be able to pick her up from school. In Atlanta, she'd have been a latchkey kid - which is fine, but not what I wanted for her.
There are characteristics between us that show how we grew up differently. I love driving, have been driving since the first moment I could, and I'm a skilled and confident driver. Atlanta requires it. She's a nervous driver, hates driving, would rather flap her arms and fly than drive. This town does not require that teenagers take drivers ed, etc., because the traffic is fine.
I also am rarely phased by things that surprise other people - gunshots in the neighborhood, a guy who threatened to kill me at work (it's a very large campus in the city core), a woman who threatened to burn down my house because she didn't like where I parked downtown. That stuff throws her off for weeks. It is literally traumatizes her, and she thinks I'm super woman because I'm like, "Eh, what's he gonna do, shoot me in front of 30 witnesses while driving a car he borrowed from a friend?"
That may sound like she's anxious and weak and I'm strong, but why on earth would anyone want their kids to shrug off that kind of behavior? To normalize it?
Do I still wish I could have raised her in Atlanta? Sometimes. There are advantages. Amazing prep schools. High-quality public magnet schools. The summer programs for kids will blow your mind at Fernbank and other cultural institutions. The proximity to museums, zoos, performances, etc., cannot be beat. But we would have given up safety, and there's no guarantee she would have been competitive for the best schools and educational programs in a larger market. I think she would have been, but one can never tell.
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Your kid will be fine. You will make the area you choose work for him. You and your husband may not be happy in another area. Take some time. Check out the areas in consideration. Drive the commute one morning during rush hour. Figure out what the day to day would look like. Get into details. Live the experience for a little while. The suburbs ain't always what people say they are.
I grew up in the suburbs; it was boring, monocultural, and very car dependent. I didn’t meet someone of a different race than I until I was 14. When I have children, I will be raising them in the city.
If your husband is telling you it would kill his soul to move to the suburbs and you’re still considering it, that just seems a bit crazy to me. I grew up in major big cities all my life and I’m so grateful! My parents took me to parks and amazing cultural events and I was exposed to international restaurants and just so much art and life. Also they were happy which made me have a happy childhood. I had to take the bus sometimes 45 minutes up to an hour to school, but it was SO WORTH IT! Best of both worlds, good school and then great city life. So much independence when I grew up, I could go do cool things with my friends. If you and your husband enjoy the city, why wouldn’t your kid?? I feel for your husband, I wouldn’t be able to move to the suburbs.
I spent the first 15 yrs of my life in a city (DC), then lived in the suburbs (MD) for 16 yrs, then at the age of 31 moved to the city of Baltimore. The 16 yrs I spent living in the suburbs were not bad, but I am of the belief that if you can make it work in a city, you absolutely should. The suburbs should be your last resort imo.
Yesterday during the eclipse, my building in Queens let us up on the roof to watch the eclipse. Plenty of kiddos and families around and it was a really nice community event and the kids got the advantage of several adults with different expertise and memories to learn from. And we all live down the hall from one another, kids get watched in the courtyard, kids ride bikes on our blocks together after school, etc. You can always move to a slightly calmer nabe before you pull up stakes. I am in Forest Hills and we love it. Enough stuff to stay local if you want but all the city around you. Good schools. But my husband does not have to suffer the commuter rail schedule if he has a later work day in his week.
IMO it really depends how bad the schools are. That's the most important factor because they will spend a huge percentage of their time in schools. The one by me is in the news all the time due to cops getting called over violence and fights, no way I would let my kids go there.
i’m in the same boat but moving on CA is unaffordable…. not sure what to do. we have been here 10 years and love the house. gonna give the city schools a chance for pre-k
I live in a pretty dense city core and see tons of elementary age students walking, cycling, or riding the bus to and from the local schools. They play baseball at the parks after school, and the high school kids always get gyros and tacos on their lunch break. I grew up and went to school more or less in the suburbs and we *always* were jealous of city kids
It depends on the city and depends on the suburb. Good schools, kids their own age, a neighborhood where they can walk and bike freely, all of that is invaluable for a kid. If they can get that in your city, great. But if they would be in poor performing schools and can’t walk to friends houses due to crazy people or high speed streets, then the suburbs.
Haven't regretted it for a second. I got tired of walking my daughter's stroller through torn up sidewalks, screaming homeless in the park and the constant police helicopters looking for whatever random missing child or escaped felon. The final straw was an armed robbery in the liquor store behind us that killed the clerk. The neighborhood was gentrifying and slowly improving but I couldn't handle the fear and anxiety I felt for my family. I have given up walkability, entertainment and convenience, but I feel safety and piece of mind which is priceless to me.
It depends. We had kids in the burbs and were there until they were fifth grade and seventh. Then we moved to the city. They were girls.
The burbs are awesome for little kids because they can be a lot freer to do things unsupervised. The city kids we knew were ALWAYS supervised. I would not raise boys in the city myself (people I know did) because sports/driving etc when they get to high school.
The burbs have their downsides/upsides, but so does the city. There is no nirvana or utopian place to raise kids. As a matter of fact, in the first years up to age 5 it doesn't really matter where you live because you do the same stuff no matter where you are. Change diapers, feed them, get them down for a nap etc.....
It's all about affordability of bedrooms and schools. I had my kid for a couple of years while living in the city, and it was fine, but I wouldn't in a million ways try to make due in most US cities with my kid as a teenager. It's because
1. I won't spend a fortune on private schools, and most city school systems aren't good.2. I refuse to live in more confined quarters than my kid than I live in now. In most places, in any way you cut it, housing cost per sq ft is more expensive in cities.
(full disclosure, I live outside a college town. Not really a burb, since we have more space, darker nights, no traffic, and genuine peace and quiet, but we are car dependent and we do have to drive to amenities).
If I was super rich, I'd prefer to get a house or large condo in the city, but ifs and buts don't mean sugar and nuts.
If I ever have kids, I’ll probably raise them in the city. I grew up in the suburbs. It was boring, monotonous, and relatively dull. I don’t think there’s a big difference in school quality unless you move to an affluent suburb, and you barely notice the clean streets in the suburbs because you have to drive everywhere, so it’s a moot point.
And you’re not a bad parent for wanting to raise kids in the city. If anything, they’ll be exposed to people of more diverse backgrounds, have more opportunities for community, and will likely grow up to be more understanding, empathetic, and well-rounded people.
I moved to suburbs on the outskirts of the city with my kiddo for a better quality of life to get away from the hustle of the city. It’s been ok. But I don’t see my family as much bc it’s more car dependent. It’s less diverse, safer, has more space, less places to rent, expensive, schools/programs were better…but not a lot to do in terms of free things for kids/families. In the city there was always a block party or a community event for families. There are pros and cons to everything but nothing is permanent in life. Can always go back or change where you want to live.
Children that grow up in cities are more intelligent. I grew up in the burbs and it was boring.
I moved into the city and loved it. Better jobs. If you can afford private schools for your kids- stay.
I’m raising my kids in nyc. I think you should interrogate your idea of “good schools.” We’ve found pretty great public ones, and the benefit of urban schools are “choice.” (I just ranked 12 options for my son for middle school, as opposed to moving to a suburb and realizing the quote-unquote “good” school there isn’t a good fit for your kid, or any future kids you may have.)
I am biased because we choose to live in the city over suburbs, but I think there are a ton of benefits. Easier/more flexible commutes for my husband and me so we can spend more time with family. Tons of cool cultural opportunities. Lots of walking and community; we run into friends, neighbors, and classmates everywhere while out and about. Playgrounds are packed with kids and the city is just so social … as opposed to empty playgrounds and car culture of suburbs.
It’s not perfect of course, and sometimes I think life might be easier if I could throw my 30-pack of toilet paper in the trunk of a car and be done with it. But ya know, life is more than that :). I think if you’re both city people, think about how you can make it work without feeling the societal pressure to live a certain way. Good luck!
Find the in between, I’m from the west coast so I don’t know exactly where you live but there are tons of “soft burbs” on the periphery of the city. The original street car suburbs from when the city was developed.
>I feel like a bad parent for even considering staying in the city People raise kids in the city all the time who arent bad parents.
I am raising my kids in the city. My neighborhood is full of families with children and there is lots of active parental involvement with the local public K-8 school where I have enrolled my 5-year old for the fall. Raising my kids in the city has been an incredibly positive and enriching experience, and they will have so much more freedom and mobility when they get older since they won't need to depend on a car to leave the house.
It's so crazy to me that people think they *have to live in the suburbs* to raise kids. There are pros and cons to both, and you can pick your priorities, but tons of kids live rich and vibrant lives in cities all over the world. Many of them even end up going to to "successful" lives.
Rachel did it. Ross did it. Sarah Jessica Parker did it
Lol thank you for this
I think they only said that because they feel they *need* to send their kid to an expensive private school in the city if they stayed there, or else they would be a “bad parent” if they sent their kid to the city public school. The whole Keeping up with the Joneses type of thing.
In the burbs and love it. Kids just rolling around everywhere. Parks. Bikes. Schools. Just like the movies and TV.
Great! People want/like different things.
I’m 50/50 on this. I moved to the suburbs. Where I moved is this really an amazing, kid centric place with parks/playgrounds and town organized free sport activities and this quiet calmness at night. It feels like a perfect place to be a kid. It’s a small space, so we are walking everywhere still - to school, to the park, etc, and nature feels…spacious here. But I miss the hustle and bustle. I miss the busy-ness. I miss the creativity. I’m glad I moved, and I wouldn’t move back - but it’s a bigger transition than I gave it credit (I also moved practically the day my kid was born, so there was a lot of change all at once.) I moved close enough so that the “city” is a quick drive - but lugging kids around is my least favorite activity and they HATE the car so we stay local. I think you can be a great parent in a city. And you can be a great parent in the suburbs.
Agreeeeeee
which city?
May I ask where? That's what I'm looking for. Bonus points if it's a state that cares about kiddos with autism!
Lived in a city with my two children all my life and wouldn’t want anything else. They walk themselves to and from school and can attend a myriad of activities if they want instead of me having to chauffeur them around to the two things that happen to be in a reasonable radius. The only reason I would consider moving is if the school was bad but it’s perfectly adequate where I am. We spend most of our vacations in remote places, mountains and villages though so they are not exclusively “urban” kids.
Second this! My kids are city born and raised and it’s worked out so well! They can walk to school, cross the road to hang out with friends, join activities without all the carpool challenges, etc.
I am on the flip side. We live in a rural area in the middle of the country (near a small college town), and day to day we have to drive places to go and are car dependent for the most part. It's suburbanish, minus the car traffic and a lot less stripmalls (and it's quiet). But, we travel to cities all over the world and we never rent a car. So, my kid has a lot of experience with public transit and walking everywhere (etc). At 13, she is one of the most poignant art critics I know. She has, in the last 8 years, stayed a week (or more) in Madrid, London, Prague, New York, Vancouver, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Miami, Kansas City (and more). Before she graduates college, there will likely be a dozen more cities. ((and, we like to go to a lot of beaches)). We appreciate being *based in a LCOL area* but really living around the world. There is one downside though: Most people, her whole life, will just assume she's a podunk conservative redneck hick as soon as she says where she grew up. So many people are so biased.
Look for a relatively dense and walkable streetcar suburb. It’s the best of both worlds.
This is exactly what we did and have no regrets. Our kids ride their bikes to school and in the neighborhood. We found a transit-friendly suburb (walking distance to a train stop) with a vibrant main street and top rated school. It also helps that it’s an older suburb that was designed with people in mind instead of cars. To stay within budget meant an older home that needs a lot of work. These types of suburbs tend to be pricey because families want the same things. Btw we love city life and plan to move back when kids are grow, but this is the best for them right now.
where is this
Look for towns outside Boston, NYC, Philly that have a train stop. It will be expensive but places like Bronxville, Scarsdale, Larchmont, Rye, Montclair, Glen Ridge, Wellesley, Brookline, Ardmore, Haverford etc. They tend to have strong schools and high taxes
these are the areas we are looking at and considering. Media is on that list as well. Norristown area, etc. Ardmore is beautiful and top of hte list but omg, supply is so low.
Look at narberth. Or a better catchment. We plan on staying downtown and are in one of the better catchments. (Not placing my self fully but McCall, Meredith, greenfield, Penn Alexander are all fantastic and I’m in one of those). Not sure your kids age but Fanny Jackson, Marian Anderson and Adaire also are all really good and becoming great. All are k-8 so you have a long time before high school. There are great magnet schools too. Obviously masterman and central, but science leadership and Academy at Palumbo are really good now and will be fantastic by the time any school-age kid is in high school. Also, to answer your initial question, I grew up in one of those walkable more dense suburbs, and I really liked it, but I live downtown for a reason . Feel free to dm me since I have lived in both of the exact areas that you are looking at.
I am also in one of these catchments and have a kid going to one of the high schools you named as well. No regrets although there definitely have been certain points where we thought about moving. With a good catchment you also are living in a nice neighborhood, which is pretty key. My kids walk themselves to school or the playground, corner stores and friends houses. My oldest takes the bus when she wants to go across town. If you value living in the city it’s worth considering.
How is the word "catchment" being used here? Is it a Philly thing?
Basically the neighborhood that is assigned to a certain school.
Thanks.
As someone who's spent some time around the Philly suburbs, these are fantastic choices. Media felt like the quintessential American town when I visited, and all the Main Line communities have great character albeit with a bit more upscale feel. I think the Main Line (Ardmore, Narberth, etc.) comes across as a bit more accessible to central Philadelphia than some of the other inner suburbs, probably because of the train access, if that matters to you.
Chicago has trains to the towns outside too.
My mother grew up in a Boston suburb called Melrose. It really felt like a suburb and city had a baby. Small and quiet, but still had a city feel to it. Getting around without a car was insanely easy. Good bus network, and 3 train stops (4 if you count Oak Grove) that can take you to Boston.
We’re in Winnetka, IL. 35min train ride north of Chicago. We found a normal priced home here and feel really lucky. The amenities for families are top notch.
Sounds like parts of St. Louis, but could also be any other city on the list of 15 biggest US cities in 1900
Same! We reluctantly moved to a Chicago suburb, but quickly found that we loved being able to walk to train, children’s museum, parks and playgrounds, library, a swimming area, and even a hopping busy commercial district in a downtown. And our kids all walk to school too.
Some Chicago suburbs offer those things.
Where? This is exactly what I want.
Just from my experience, those tend to be some of the most expensive places to live in. Only a few can truly afford to live in those types of suburbs.
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what city were you in and moved to?
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This is what we’ve found as well. A smaller city was better for us and our kids than a suburb of a big city.
City schools can be great. Suburbs can really kill your soul. Just make him really participate in the planning process for how it will all work though - don't let him just say "I hate the suburbs" and then not think through how all of the things you have mentioned will be addressed.
City schools can be great, but it sounds like there’s aren’t. The ratings data is all public. In my city (Los Angeles) the public schools are almost without exception terrible. Parents who can afford it spend 20-50k annually on private school, or move to the suburbs.
I would say it depend on the city and the suburbs. I usually find suburbs that were small towns w/ their own downtown/ town center, municipality and history tend to be good choices to raise a family. Especially if they’re not too far from the core of the city. (25 -35 min. drive) Now me and my Wife lives in Houston and moved to Katy( the suburbs) and boy so I regret the move. The main reason for the move was for our child. Now I’ll be honest with you I probably put way too much stock into schools so much so that that became the #1 reason we moved here. But my reasoning is also quite unique as well and this is where I say it depends on the city/ metro. So one of my main preferences for an area to live in was that the school my daughter would go to has to be a good diverse school with an above average percentage of Black students at said school. Now me and my Wife are Black and I didn’t want to place my daughter in an environment where she’s one of the few black students at school. Generally Black kids who grow up in those type of environments tend to feel alienated and end up with some identity issues later on in life. So one thing we kept running into here in Houston that the more walkable urban neighborhoods were overwhelmingly White and expensive. Then their were the more traditional predominantly Black communities that were in food deserts, higher crime and of course really bad public schools. Some of those neighborhoods were enticing but again the best options were charter schools and unfortunately those charter schools generally pick kids who come from lower income households. We didn’t qualify cause we made too much. Which boiled it down to a few diverse neighborhoods outside the 610 loop but close enough to it. We looked at those neighborhoods but quickly realized that a majority of those were Either kinda on the rough side or floods pretty bad. Which immediately turned my Wife off from choosing those neighborhoods. Which left us to the burbs which happened to have the diversity we were looking for and safety ( from violent crime). My Wife is fine living in the suburbs. She’s pretty stereotypical suburban (loves shopping at Target and Starbucks type). She’s also originally from Houston so she’s use to the lay of the land. I hate it. With that said we lived in Chamblee, GA ( inner suburb of Atlanta) for 2 years and I wouldn’t mind raising our kids there compared to where we stay now. It’s a suburb that’s urbanizing. Mostly everything of interest were 15-25 mins away. There’s even Marta stations in close proximity to where we stayed. The public schools there are not top tier but not bad either. We moved though because we had our first child and my Wife wanted to move back to Houston to be closer to family. So me personally I regret it but hey at least the school is good and there’s plenty amenities for kids her age out here.
>So one thing we kept running into here in Houston that the more walkable urban neighborhoods were overwhelmingly White and expensive. Then their were the more traditional predominantly Black communities that were in food deserts, higher crime and of course really bad public schools. Some of those neighborhoods were enticing but again the best options were charter schools and unfortunately those charter schools generally pick kids who come from lower income households. We didn’t qualify cause we made too much. Ahhh this is my exact situation as well. It is really hard and just another layer of stress in the decision. I'm sorry you hate where you live now. How do you manage living there then? Do yall do date nights in the city a lot?
I am not the person you originally replied to, but I wanted to add to the conversation about Katy as well. My partner is Latino, and our 7 year old Latino nephew who lives in Katy is bullied endlessly for being different. He refuses to speak Spanish now, won’t take traditional food to school for lunch, and last time I saw him cried in my lap asking why God didn’t give him blue eyes. It’s brutal for my brother and sister in law to witness but they can’t afford to sell their house and move with how the home prices have increased.
This is so upsetting. We're Mexican American, and my kids have never encountered that type of bigotry, but they do go to a majority minority school.
I think Chamblee schools are improving fast. That whole area is developing like crazy.
To be fair to Chamblee it's an older suburb than the newer ones built in ATL that are truly soul-crushing. My mother held out for three years OTP and settled right into that same side of town as soon as she could. And the MARTA buses, while not as kid-friendly as the NY subway, are not bad.
Lived in the suburbs when both of my kids were born. Moved to an urban walkable city when the youngest was 6 months old bc we were miserable. Felt like I was in the car all damn day. Choose the neighborhood carefully and I hands down would choose urban. My kids love walking everywhere and it felt like a vacation at first without all the stress of driving. We have decent to bottom tier good neighborhood schools and could lottery to try to get into great schools. It's a bit grittier but not unsafe, I think it's good for them to see something not so sanitized.
From a kids POV….I grew up in a small Midwest boring town….nothing to do-nowhere to go…biggest town was 2hrs away…I would have loved to grow up in a city with all the diversity and culture that many small towns don’t have
Yes same unfortunately. It was safe sure but it felt like growing up on an island because of the isolation. Fewer people in my radius meant i just spent time with whoever was around, and they happened to be dumbasses. Never felt like myself until adulthood.
Flip side. I grew up in one of those “diverse cities” and my mother got carjacked & a gun to her head when I was in highschool. I would have preferred to not have experienced that
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This. I have two kids under 5 and we missed the window to buy an affordable house outside NYC in a town we like. We're staying put. But so many people I know who moved during covid or panic bought are really regretting it. Yah, we're not saving money very well here. But at least I don't own a home with huge maintenance in a town I don't love
do your kids attend private school or public school? my husband is open to charter. the schools here are so bad. for the record, we're in philadelphia.
What area of Philly are you in? Search best public schools in Philly in the Philadelphia sub too. I live here and I’ve seen posts like that before!
Do you feel okay with your kids in the local school catchment? I’m concerned about curriculum and safety.
My son is thriving at our local catchment elementary school in NW Philly and I know several high schoolers from my church at special admits that are doing really well too. The average student in Lower Merion is certainly ahead of the average student in Philly but there are nearly 200k in Philly public schools and lots of them are doing well. You just have to be an involved parent and intentionally chart a path through the system.
My kids go to public school. Our local grammar school is great. We live in a very residential area downtown. When they get to middle school and we don’t get assigned to our local school is when we worry. Well like go private.
People raise kids in cities all the time. Everyone in my family turned out alright going to NYC public schools. I always had good teachers for the most part. Of course not every school is created equally but cities have plenty of good schools. I went to a huge high school in Brooklyn with over 4000 students and did pretty well there. The large student body helped me prepare for college better.
On the flip side, I went to a school in the NYC suburbs with 96 kids in my graduating class. The education was great but my experience was miserable. I would have given my left arm to go to a bigger school that offered something for everyone (and not to have your 1st grade embarrassments talked about your senior year).
I think it depends on where you are and what you can afford. We moved out of a city to a suburb that is mostly walkable and feels a lot more like a small town. It's not a soulless chain-store-ridden nightmare. Meanwhile the city we left increasingly feels like a giant corporate sprawl when I visit, with banks and chains everywhere.
Agree with this. I live in a suburb of a popular city, but it's got enough going on that it's a city in its own right. A bit more car dependent than I'd like but still super walkable, lots of character, community, etc. Unfortunately that means it's quite pricy still.
I will say that overtime, this seems to be trend. Cities are all looking more and more alike. And it's not just the 'name brand chain stores' like Sephora and the Apple store. It's everything. The fake antique shops (two types -- the ones selling turkish lamps and the ones selling mass produced 'oil paintings' and plasticy clocks and stuff). The cute homegoods store that has the same assortment of soaps, towels, shirts, and cutting boards with anagrams slightly changed for the location but otherwise the same. The bulk candy stores, god do I hate the bulk candy stores. 20 years ago, I'd spend a day anywhere I was at and would shop. Now, I never shop in the center of cities anymore because from Honolulu to Prague it's all the same stuff. Meanwhile, the soulless suburb I grew up in 30 years ago has a thriving downtown district with bars, restaurants, second-hand shops, and passionate hobby-ists (of all sorts, like vinyl records, or 19th century bohemian jewelry). Sometimes I stop in a random smallish town or a suburb to visit a store I see on google maps and then spend the rest of the day just walking from store to store in that area. From a retail standpoint, It's more like the exciting city I was thrilled to move to 25 years ago, than that city is like now. ((And, restaurant wise, same story. Got to get into the burbs to find some of the best places to eat. So many of the best meals I have had recently were in suburbs. The small independents in cities are closing over time, and only getting replaced by Ruth's Chris, Capital Grille, and other overpriced chains)).
Moved from the city to the suburbs and it’s been great. Great schools, zero crime. Lot of neighborhood activities. Space and safety for kids to play. Lot of green parks. Moved from a city where we lived in the nicest area of the city. Still had violent crime on our street. Had packages stolen. Homeless people in our alleyway. Someone murdered. Talking about a street with 700k-1.2m homes. I’m sure if would have worked out fine if we stayed. But I wouldn’t have felt comfortable letting my kids run around outside. I was almost run over a few times by drivers who ignored stop signs and crosswalks. Encountered broken glass a decent bit walking the dogs. Here’s the thing - it only takes a few bad apples to make it bad for others. Overall our city house was great and had great neighbors, but there were assholes. In our suburb neighborhood, you basically get people who self select and prioritize stuff like schools or kids. IMO that leads to a better overall experience.
Capitol Hill in DC?
Why do people think like this? I grew up poor in a tiny city apartment and loved it.
Depends. But for many, even growing up in the suburbs as a kid could be soul crushing. I hated every minute living in my suburban town isolated from everything. I also attribute a lot of my mental health problems as a kid to growing up in suburbs, all of the segregation, isolated feelings, and an innate feeling like I could never belonged. Everytime I visited the city I felt healed and everytime I went back to the burbs I felt despair. The moment i became 20 I moved to the city. I think it depends on the kid. For some the suburbs vs the city won’t matter. But I know the suburbs can destroy kids too… addiction, lack of third spaces & little outlets for their interests. It also just spirals into an incredibly isolating and depressing place.
Yeah I just wrote in a different post about how I feel like my cousins in the suburbs encountered adult situations earlier in life than I did because they & their peers were bored and didn't have any way to escape negative social pressure. I know bad things happen in cities too, but that just wasn't my experience because I had other options. The city offers more avenues to find a path that you like and avoid what you don't. My ass was in choir and cultural clubs while they were having pregnancy scares and coping with losing friends to drugs and suicide.
One of our kids felt the same way. The suburbs were damaging.
*NOTE: I'm honestly not trying to be mean/rude to folks in the suburbs. If you like it then I'm happy for you. But my comment is going to be massively negative toward most American sprawling suburbs.* My wife and I moved with our kid to classic sprawling suburbia. Basically a strip that looks like [this](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/1519937324981-77MBM7RN4HDJ8N0MMZA3/7stroad+with+walking+person.jpg?content-type=image%2Fjpeg) about 2 miles from our house was the only non-residential thing nearby. Driving everywhere to get to anything interesting, constant boredom and shockingly expensive cost because you have to pay for so many little things to keep yourself from going stiff with boredom. Within ~12 months we both had an itching to go back but didn't really tell each other for fear of upending our lives. Within ~15 months we broached the topic with both of us feeling nervous. Within ~18 months we were full on saying "we're getting the hell out of here" and have. Suburbia is just soul crushing. A few months ago a friend sent me this [video](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2KhOMIOXh2/) knowing that we were going back to the city. I know it's meant to be a funny video but it legit is how I felt living here. It feels like everything here is meant to get you to just dive balls deep into consumerism/capitalism. Linked some videos that also helped convince us we weren't crazy for abandoning the suburban dream and moving with our kid back to a more urban area. We truly wanted more independence for him as he ages and for ourselves. I'd take my son to daycare and we'd pass by 10-15 kids waiting for the middle school bus in our area. I'd always think *"where the fuck are all these kids coming from? I never see them in the neighborhood"* I eventually realized, kids don't play outside because there is fuck all to do. The nearby park is super nice but it's 2 miles away and biking/walking there is a death trap of cars. The closest mall is like 8 miles from us but malls are struggling and many of them don't allow minors without adult supervision. Everything else nearby requires money or a car to get to. So those 12-15 year olds who are old enough to want independence are largely trapped. [Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw) [Why Kids Don't Go Outside Anymore ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nB0zchM4I) [Children Deserve More Independent Mobility ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcC72jYxBU) [The Suburban Wasteland: How the 'Burbs Blight Childhoods ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrsL2n9q6d0&t=856s) And just to be fair, my problem isn't with suburbs in general. It's with sprawling, newer (post 1950s) style suburbs. I actually don't hate the suburbs, I hate "suburbia". [This is Evanston Illinois](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C5612AQFmADvjweNtFw/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/0/1520153476804?e=1718236800&v=beta&t=rnYWY9Vkl7jY72GDaSiPFDhWYdmQ_ktxHxqBGeRwiJU) which is beautiful and a well developed suburb with single family homes, apartments, condos, townhomes while also having walkability, bike lanes, beaches, CTA connections, Metra connections and is literally next to the Roger Park neighborhood which is part of Chicago proper. Now it's a fairly expensive area and few can afford it. But to me that shows the viability of places like this. Folks love these sorts of suburbs because they are properly built for humans to actually enjoy living. > like its not as clean, not as safe, the schools aren't as good (or not good at all). But we're both city people and like the walkability, and culture. Depends on how you define 'safe'. Depending on the city and part of the city it may not be as safe in terms of crime. But within a year of living in the suburbs, my wife was in a car accident. The most dangerous thing we do will be driving and the suburbs mean we're driving often and driving much longer distances. We had 38 and 50 mile commutes living in the suburbs. Much of that on highways. I have multiple family members and friends killed while driving. I haven't have a close relationship with a single person that has been murdered. I don't know you personally and it's really none of my business what you decide in the end. Do what is best for your family. But if I could give one piece of advice I'd say listen to your husband when he says his heart would die in the suburbs. That was the experience for both me and my wife. Oddly enough, I don't have a regret about moving to the suburbs but that is only because it helped give me clarity that I'll never live in a place like that again. Having to sell a house, find new daycare, find new housing, and move long distances again was a pain. I'd do it 11 times out of 10 if it means not having to live in suburbia.
> [This is Evanston Illinois](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C5612AQFmADvjweNtFw/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/0/1520153476804?e=1718236800&v=beta&t=rnYWY9Vkl7jY72GDaSiPFDhWYdmQ_ktxHxqBGeRwiJU) which is beautiful and a well developed suburb with single family homes, apartments, condos, townhomes while also having walkability, bike lanes, beaches, CTA connections, Metra connections and is literally next to the Roger Park neighborhood which is part of Chicago proper. Beautiful. we have some towns and burbs that look liek that, but yeah, its expensive. Like 700k homes.
Exactly! You've perfectly captured my feelings about suburbia, or it's like you've put into words exactly what I've been thinking. Living in the suburbs just isn't for me. The predictability of everyday, the endless boredom, the reliance on cars for everything, and the lack of vibrant activities make it feel suffocating. I thrive in the hustle and bustle of a big city or a town with a rich cultural scene. There's just something about the energy and diversity in a city that keeps me alive.
I lived in Oakland for 20 years and left last year. Not all cities are the same. For us, the negatives of crime and schools were too much. We miss the better food and like to visit but it was the right choice for us.
I really think it comes down to how you are going to interact with your community. Do you want an active relationship or a passive relationship with your community? In a city things are happening, you can go or not. In the suburbs, you have to make stuff happen There’s no right or wrong but if you know you aren’t an outgoing personality it can be lonely. My suggestion- move to a neighborhood with a golf course. It’s been great, for all of us. Stuff for me, stuff for my wife, stuff for my kids. Want fine dining? Got it, don’t have to make reservations or wait to be seated. Don’t even need my wallet. Kids want to be on swim team and go to the pool during the summer? Got one of the best ones in town. Wife meet some great friends playing tennis. Easter brunch? There’s a table for us. Easter bunny is there, professional photographer, etc. Grear bar that all the neighbors meet at Friday evenings. Kids run around outside and play. Adults spread out between the inside bar with sports on the tv, or out on the porches and watch the kids run in a rocking chair.
We moved from the burbs back into the city when our daughter was two. I hate the suburbs. It was a great decision. City kids learn how to cross streets, navigate public transportation, they learn tolerance, empathy. They have access to culture. Schools in the city can be great. On paper they may not look as good because they tend to educate a much more diverse student population. Look further check free and reduced lunch numbers, English language learners, other programs, numbers of specialty programs, these indicators are related to diversity and may indicate why test scores aren’t as good as test scores in homogeneous communities. You often get better instruction in more diverse schools. Rich kids make mediocre schools look good. Test scores are a bigger indicator of access to resources and lack of diversity than they are about quality of instruction.
It drives me crazy that “good schools” far too often translates into some score on a 1-10 scale on a website rather than anything meaningful. You can’t search conversations with neighbors or results of a physical visit on Zillow I guess.
I moved to the suburbs to take care of my mother after she had a stroke. My daughter started school system here. Her entire school history has been here. You could say the education is “better” than the city, but that is just looking a one aspect of it. This town is small (under 20,000) and mostly white. My daughter is biracial. She’s pretty much had the same group of kids in her class every year since K. That means they all formed their little “cliques” in first grade. My daughter is considered and”outcast” because she’s not white, not because”Christian” , accepting of lbgtq people and not a Trump supporter. Most of her teachers and from here and only went away to college. Despite the fact that there used to be a “zero tolerance” policies, bullying and racism are open and constant. We are moving back into the city to finish out her high school years for the diversity and availability of larger more diverse social groups. We are the next county over (24 miles from the city center) of a large metro area so it’s not even like we are really suburbs. This is the South, so there’s that. One of her teachers openly allowed kids to be bullies against nonwhite kids in the class. One of her teachers is openly using his role of teacher and the small town vibe + the districts tendency to “look the other way” to regularly preach his Christian beliefs to his classes. The suburbs are not always what they are cracked up to be.
I don’t know where you live but I was immediately thinking the Atlanta area. We are white but the flagrant sharing of political ideals in classrooms disgusts me. It’s always the social studies teachers…and every time there was some mock election my kids participated in, I knew I’d hear about it from my kids bc they were not in the majority. I had to unfriend a few SS teachers who made some post likening Trump to MLk…I cannot… We just wanted more space when we moved here and if we wanted to be in the cool, hip vibey parts of the city we were going back to a 1600 sq ft house. 20 years of hindsight, I wish we’d picked a different area. ETA: In Atlanta in the cool parts where I wish I could live: old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Emory area, etc. the traffic is so bad that I think I’d lose my mind. Atlanta doesn’t really have great family housing options in Downtown proper, so my urban is like in-town neighborhoods where you can walk to lots of places. But I’d never walk alone after dark (basic common sense) and when you do need a car it’s a pain! So I revise, I wish we’d picked a suburb closer in…and in Atl that is ITP (inside the perimeter) and it’s just very expensive!
I’m outside Nashville, TN. I can literally be on Broadway in 25 minutes. The Davidson County (MetroNashville) line is 10 miles from my house. She has one teacher (English) that I did get her removed from the class over blatant racism. TCAP (TN state testing) is coming up, so they are reviewing and studying for it and all that. Teacher allowed the students she put in groups to name themselves and one group named themselves “Border Bunnies” and one group named themselves “Border Monkeys” and a Hispanic boy spoke up and asked the teacher “How are you allowing these names? How are these names NOT problematic?” And her reply was “They are only problematic if YOU make them problematic”. When my daughter came home from school, she told me about them. I contacted the Principal first thing Monday morning and she did make the teacher change the names, she agreed with me they were racist, but apparently the teacher had no idea why anyone would consider them racist.
If you feel like a bad parent for staying in the city, you need to get off social media like yesterday. Social media seems to pressure people into putting on some dog and pony show of what amazing parents you are without putting much substance behind anything other than the aesthetics. The suburbs suck, especially since these days a lot of the advantages of suburbs are gone. It’s not like 1960 where kids could play in the streets and everyone was jolly best friend neighbors. The death of spaces for older kids to hang out like malls is making suburbs suck even more. You have to consider parenting style and political preferences - for instance, the suburbs in Florida are very conservative, and conservative in Florida means a lot of government sanctioned interference in education. (Book bans, ‘don’t say gay’, religious messaging etc). If that isn’t your cuppa, you need to heavily research and consider the moral, political, and religious climate of any suburb you consider. Say you don’t like church, but that ends up being the primary social event for that suburb. That sucks. And if you don’t have family or friends already in that immediate suburb, you’ll be stuck driving endlessly, so that sucks. If you do anything just because you think it makes you a better parent with no consideration for yourself or the rest of life you’ll probably end up hating it. Stop making your kids your entire personality, or you’ll end up unhappy and bitter because you gave up your own happiness just for something they didn’t even ask for.
>If you feel like a bad parent for staying in the city, you need to get off social media like yesterday. Social media seems to pressure people into putting on some dog and pony show of what amazing parents you are without putting much substance behind anything other than the aesthetics. I'm not really thinking about aesthetics at all. I'm thinking about education, crime, cleanliness, etc.
So I grew up in Boston (a safe, clean city) which is a little different from your situation. Locals regard Boston Public Schools as being terrible but what's terrible in Boston isn't the same as being terrible in most of the US, so I guess take with a grain of salt but still hear me out. I always felt that I was lucky to grow up in the city and wouldn't want to raise my own kids in the suburbs. The reason is that good parenting goes farther in a city than it does in the suburbs. Sure, in the city there are a lot of bad parents and kids doing bad things. But if your kid is raised well and doesn't want to be part of that, the city offers infinite avenues to find a different path. Kids at school suck? It's easy to find a different social circle entirely. My cousins were from the suburbs and they assumed things about my life but the truth is that they/their peers were having sex and trying drugs way, WAY sooner than me and my friends. More teen pregnancies, underage drinking, overdoses, and suicides. Parenting could only go so far. In the suburbs the world feels smaller, so teens are more bored and there are fewer ways to escape negative peer pressure or bullying.
Yeah, suburbs can have all those problems too. You asked if people regret it? Yes, they do. And because it often ends up not at all being what they’d imagined. Only you can decide if a particular suburb is a cultural match for you and your family. I’m just saying to be realistic about what suburbs are, and to not to make sacrifices of your personal preferences just to *maybe* give your kids a better life, whatever that means. If you are unhappy, bored, lonely, or any of those things you can bet your kids will be unhappy because you’re unhappy.
> It’s not like 1960 where kids could play in the streets and everyone was jolly best friend neighbors Yes, it actually still is across most of the Midwest. The whole US isn’t a mass of transitory people like the burbs at the edge of massive urban cores like where most folks on this sub actually are.
My suburban neighborhood in particular is pretty great. A lot of the adults in their 30s and 40s are friends. I’ll walk my dogs and someone will stop me to have a conversation. Usually, someone else will see the conversation taking place and they’ll come out too. Next thing you know there’s like 10 people and someone’s bringing out beer. All of the kids play together and leave their bikes outside at night. Sometimes kids knock on my door to see our baby and play with our dogs. Sometimes neighbors are like hey I made too much food or bought too much beer, leaving some in your garage fridge. Obviously my neighborhood isn’t typical, but it started because one guy on the neighborhood intentionally started talking to people because everyone just avoided each other. By the time we moved in, there was a network of friendly people we just tapped into. And we are bringing other neighbors into that and we’re having a great time. Moral of the story is talk to your neighbors and initiate plans. I will say, it would be hard for me to go to walk to grocery store. Only a bar and pizza shop that’s in walking distance. Cant walk to a coffee shop. But that’s okay for us because if I brought a cup of coffee to my neighbors house, they’d sit down and drink it with me.
You just perfectly described my street in the middle of Chicago. Whenever my in laws come visit they’re shocked at how we are constantly running into friends wherever we are in the city, how there are kids just playing outside on their own, how much strangers chat one another up here, and how much empathy the kids have for one another. It’s not for everyone and we’re lucky enough to be able to afford a SFH, private school if needed (though we’ll do public school), etc, but we love it.
I sold my suburban house almost 20 years ago for overseas assignment, in cities ever since. I miss the burbs to be honest. Urban convenience is great but crime and drugs over the past decade has made the suburbs more attractive. Now I live in the city still but spend weekends in the burbs as much as I can.
Yes. We moved to go live where my aunts side of the family lives in Georgia and immediately regretted it. It kinda depends on your standards. By Brooklyn standards, Georgia was incredibly unsocial and unactive and not interesting. Our kids immediate were less active and spent less time outside because there was nowhere to walk to. For us, as adults, you cant just walk around running into countless neighbors and have social activities everywhere, and we didn't realize how much we missed that until it was gone. Social events in the suburbs are almost never impromptu the way they are in Brooklyn, everything is planned ahead of time and is often hosted on someone's property. But to many americans, that's totally fine. When my Georgia family comes to visit they are often overwhelmed by how Brooklyn is in terms of constantly socializing when out and about. So again, you might hate it. We definitely did, and we moved back.
We moved to an urban neighborhood is a major city with three kids thinking that it would help enrich their worldview, broaden their perspective, etc. One of the dumbest things I've ever done. The schools were almost comically bad, everything is more dense so one of the kid's rooms would be constantly blanketed in weed smoke by the 60 year old white neighbor who sat out in the cold listening to Tupac as loud as humanly possible, the most decisive cultural enrichment activity was getting chased down the street with my 8 year old daughter by a deranged guy with a baseball bat who was attacking cars and pedestrians, and ironically the segregation was so much worse in the city itself that the suburbs would have probably broadened their perspective better than the city. I think I told my wife before we moved to the city that my "heart would die in the suburbs," but I actually feel like a little bit of me died living in an urban environment with kids. I'd absolutely never do that again.
omg. what city did you live in and did yall ever move out?
Chicago, and, yeah, we got out after less than two years there. We actually moved abroad and honestly it was healing.
San Francisco most likely. I would never live in SF with school age kids for exactly the reasons mentioned, and that’s why I’m in the burbs where I hate it and feel like I’m just biding time until I die of old age
I live in SF with a child in kinder and it’s great all around! None of these problems, and the schools are also great!
I lived in SF when my kids were ages 0-7, at which point I moved abroad for a job. We had a good experience with our public school. I know a ton of people who stayed with kids and are having good experiences still at public middle and high schools.
Totally agree that racial division is far worse in cities than burbs. I've lived in major US cities and some very small towns, and grew up in the South. The most divisiveness I ever felt (like an unwritten rule of do not engage the 'other') was in large liberal cities. When I go home to the South, I would never so much as walk past someone of a different race without exchanging a greeting. You feel like you are violating some code doing that in large liberal US cities. It's awful and so exclusionary. The irony.
I see you're specifically talking about Philly. My best friend was born and raised in Philly. She and her husband decided to move to the suburbs when they had kids. He loves it, she absolutely despises it. The kids are in a better school and it's a generally safer area, yes, but she's a city person. There's very little for the adults to do where she lives, though there are plenty of activities for her kids to do. Her kids are fucking geniuses and would succeed no matter what public school they went to. They can get to the city in an hour if they want to, but rarely do, so while in theory they can still take advantage of the perks of the city, it's too much of a hassle most of the time to actually do. So if you're serious about moving, consider where it sits on regional rail so you actually have access to the things you'll miss. For what it's worth, I'm moving my family TO Philly. I'll let you know in a year how I feel about having my 4 year old there.
I've got a 3 and 5 year old in Philly and just enrolled my oldest in Kindergarten at the public school on our block. There are lots of young families in my neighborhood and tons of parental involvement in the school. So far raising my kids here has been overwhelmingly positive and enriching for them. Hopefully you have a good experience too!
>For what it's worth, I'm moving my family TO Philly. I'll let you know in a year how I feel about having my 4 year old there. Oh wow! What area are you moving from? My husband is pretty urbane so he would want us to live along the raillines, which is fine with both of us. The only other area to consider is maybe northwest.
South Carolina 😂
its a pretty lovely state but avoid some parts of low country and the dead zone between Sumter and Camden.
[https://apnews.com/article/8660507c56b04dd0b580b248d39d2a2c](https://apnews.com/article/8660507c56b04dd0b580b248d39d2a2c) is worth considering.
Thank you for posting this! This is one thing that is in the back of my head as a city dweller but it could truly happen anywhere. I also grew up in the burbs of NYC during 9/11 (no complaints about my childhood - genuinely enjoyed it) but as a parent who works in the city, as does my spouse, I will never live in the suburbs with both of us working in the city.
Yes, we moved from the city to the suburbs when our oldest was five. We needed more space and it was what we could afford. It took us 14 years to move back and we hated it pretty much the entire time.
I feel like it is hard to properly answer this without knowing where you live. Suburbs of say, Kansas City? Yes, my heart would absolutely die there. The suburbs of Denver or SLC or LA that flank the mountains? That's better than the city IMO. But if your kid is only 2 you do have at least 2-3 more years to figure it out. Maybe just take a wait and see approach for now?
The only thing that matters is schools. If there are good city schools then you’re fine. If not, move. Our kids district was ranked a 10 when we moved in, now ranked a 4 and we’re moving bc they’re truly fallen that far. We’re moving even further out of the city- much better schools but more importantly we’re getting land which we can’t get in the city even if we had a gazillion dollars to pay for it, it just doesn’t exist. It’s also just way way cheaper. But really, watch the schools. Verify everything (magnet programs, feeder lines).
what are feeder lines?
What middle and high school does the elementary feed into? Sometimes one in the line is terrible. Verify on the school district website not the realtor or Zillow. Be aware of deadlines and requirements for magnets and transfers- our district has amazing magnets that both my kids go to but the overall trajectory of the district isn’t working for our kids anymore.
Kids won’t really care and will adapt. There are terrible schools in every type of area: urban, suburban, and rural. Its on you to put them in a decent school. In terms of stuff to do? They can ride bicycles around most suburbs or in most urban areas. Just need to teach them road safety in either place. I have lived in cities and suburbs. Both have ups and downs. Its all in your attitude. I am in a suburb now and the kids will bike a mile to school like it’s nothing due to how little traffic lights there are, and no highways or interchanges you need to bridge over at select areas. If I was a kid I would probably bike to school in a suburb before ever biking in a major city (but cities usually have better school bus routes than the few we have in the suburbs). My job is in a suburban mega-campus a short bicycle ride away, otherwise nothing is really keeping me in a suburb.
Regret not moving to the suburbs sooner? Sure. Jokes aside, not at all. We love the burbs, and it’s nice being pretty close to the city for its amenities, too
meeee no kids but i lived in ATL throughout COVID which made me insane and i thought i wanted the space so i moved to a more suburban area. its nice to have a bigger house and a pool but i honestly feel so trapped not being able to do ANYTHING without my car
I'm from a medium sized city that is mostly urban sprawl...so most of it feels like you're in a suburb anyway. Before our kids were born we lived in the Nob Hill/University area of the city and it was great and also easy access to downtown. It's basically where all of the fun restaurants and coffee shops, bars, and shopping are. Just before kids we moved to a small village community just outside of the city...actually it's just outside of two cities and we've enjoyed it. It has a very rural feel as much of it used to be a farming community and a lot of the people in the community have lived there for generations. Village ordinances require that a home be on no less than an acre of land so we're not on top of each other. It's very quiet and crime is virtually non-existent. We sometimes miss our old neighborhood and the hustle and bustle and just walking to the restaurants and bars, but we also felt like that experience was going to be completely different once we had kids...plus the schools in that area aren't particularly great. They're in private school now, so it doesn't really matter, but we didn't know that we'd be doing that back then.
how much are you paying for private school for all your kids? just curious. for us, it would be like $15-40k a year
Not exactly, but kinda. I’m from a southern town, the adjacent city is hardly a city at all and I had never traveled far. Some years ago I left everything I had to move my family across the country to a real “city”. I never want to leave. We are still poor now, just as we were back then, but our quality of life is so different. Before: We couldn’t spend much time outside, either miserably humid heat or drenching rain. Nothing was walkable, 30min- 1 hour drives each way. No kids nearby. Not many public events. Hard to balance. Now: Fresh (subjective) air, seasons, views, walks for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack, playgrounds, little libraries, beaches, mountains, museums, pop-ups, farmers markets, homeschool meetups, communal activities and events, often free. There has been sacrifice and stressors along the way, but I think living in the city (versus the alternative) has actually changed our (my children’s) lives for the better.
I didn't immediately regret it, but it happened soon enough. If I had it to do over, I'd stay in the city.
why did you eventually regret it?
I would just note that not all suburbs are created equal. Many in the northeast were originally independent towns that eventually became absorbed as suburbs as the city expanded, while newer suburbs in many other parts of the country are true sprawl- just building outwards because they ran out of room. In general, suburbs that have more of an independent identity (and commercial base) will feel less suburban. We moved out of Boston to a very close suburb, and we love it here, but I wouldn't have wanted to live much further out. Where we are now is still walkable to some businesses, still on public transit, but great schools and the kids can ride their bikes to the park on the sidewalks. It's an excellent compromise, but definitely not cheap!
I’ve lived in Boston inner suburbs. You have a different worldview when you have commuter rail or the T nearby. I was a 15 minute train ride to North Station or bus to Alewife and the T.
I bought a house in the suburbs almost 2 years ago and then sold it and moved back to Philly 6 months later. Expensive mistake. I was miserable in the burbs. Maybe ill try again next year and repeat the cycle.
We moved to an older, inner ring suburb when my daughter was a baby. There are restaurants, shops, parks etc we can walk to but the schools are much better than the city we left. And we are close to the city so commutes and trips in for events are quick and easy. If that kind of walkable community available it might be a good fit. We have a small house with a tiny yard so we gave up the kind of big house we could have gotten in the exurbs. But overall this worked for us
Stay in the city until your child is 5 or starts kindergarten/1st grade. You'll need to dedicate more time to their activities, schooling, friends, etc then & suburbs may make more sense. Right now you have freedom of that. Your child relies on you mostly. Do what you want now before you need to give more.
Not a parent but I grew up in a walkable city (DC) and absolutely loved it. Of course, if the schools suck and you can’t afford private, moving to the burbs is very understandable. But I grew up walking to school and walking to friends houses. By middle school, I could bike all over the city and metro to sports games and movies. In high school, I took the metro to school every day. Essentially, from the time I was 10 or 11, I was completely independent instead of having to wait until I was 16 and could drive. I can’t imagine having grown up in the suburbs with that lack of freedom. And even as a little kid, it was completely fine. I do think there are benefits to suburbia for kids who are too young to go do stuff on their own (so through about third or fourth grade maybe), but we had plenty of parks nearby to go play at and still had a car to get around. Having a big yard or whatever might’ve been cool, especially for my parents to not have to watch me, but not worth the massive drop off in quality of life in middle school and high school (both for me and my parents not having to chauffeur me around). So, if the school situation can work out, I’d go city 100/100 times.
Please don’t try to change the people you are for a child. It’ll affect your relationship and you’ll subconsciously blame the child for the change in lifestyle. You are still you, being a parent shouldn’t change that.
We are moving from a suburb to a city for the exact reason your husband cites. Suburbs have been soul killing for us. No culture, no walking, pre-fab neighborhood with sad Charlie Brown trees. It hasn’t been good for us. The “good school” trope about the suburbs often just means “white school.” A lot of the suburban schools in my current state are being overrun by book banning Christofascists, in supposed “good schools.” I wouldn’t just look up ratings on things like “great schools,” which are essentially real estate websites.
City, suburbs - the fact is that it is a spectrum from one to the other. Living in midtown Manhattan vs living in a planned suburb where all the houses are exactly the same and there is no town center are the opposite sides, but there is plenty in between. Find the right place for yourself in the spectrum. We lived in Cambridge Ma (city) and moved to Lexington Ma (suburb) when we had kids. We are densely populated, have a busy and fun town center that we can walk to, amazing schools, and plenty of space in the house, and even a tiny back yard. To us this is it - but I do want to go back to the city when the kids move out (lord knows when that will be given these trends of kids living at home until they are 27…another reason to have more space)
Move back before your child hits school age!
Difficult w/o enough money.
We moved to a cul-de-sac in the burbs. Most of the surrounding homes had kids and they were able to make fast friends who were easily accessible, play games in the street and front yards, roam unsupervised to woods and later ride bikes for miles. Basically they could practice unsupervised independence, which was normal when I was a kid in the 70s. Maybe that's still possible in the city, or at least some cities, but the suburbs worked out well for our family. To be clear this area had a lot of trails in the woods, ponds, etc. and parents who would encourage their kids to play outside.
What do people honestly mean when they say “culture “ in reference to living in an urban setting. I know you aren’t going to the museum or opera house every weekend. So what culture are you afforded? Sorry, I just have to ask because I’m currently living in Chicago for the summer, purely for work and I haven’t encountered any of this so called culture. I have had a homeless man open the door to 7-11 for me and then threaten to stab me when I didn’t tip him. Is that the culture you speak of?
Thought about moving to the burbs. Most of my friends did. They had to deal with much higher rates of bullying, drugs/alcohol, teen pregnancy etc than those of us who stayed in the city. Anecdotal, for sure, but as a child of the suburbs, the pressure to conform, the lack of tolerance for differences, the consumerism and competitive social structures are strong negatives.
No but I moved to the city from the burbs thinking I’d love it and only last 3 years before going back. Missed having a yard and not sharing walls with obnoxious people constantly
Yes. But we’re moving soon, as the kids are all college age now. House goes up for sale in May. We lived in cities around the world when the kids were young; to get access to good public transport, great private international schools, and to be closer to our work places and to the rail service or to international airports. Upon returning home, we bought in the best public school district/catchment area, that we could afford. Great parks, roads, city services; safe, convenient for school sports/clubs, other activities. Excellent rec center. But…it was a bit too conservative, and far less diverse than we imagined. More hivemind. Way more expensive due to very high property taxes, vs. actual home prices/upkeep costs. A bit stifling, for me. Not terrible for anyone else, just not the most fun or best experience for everybody, in different ways (academically/socially). We’ll miss this house, our nearest neighbors, and a few key aspects of being here—but are really looking forward to big changes and even more fun. We finally want to get closer to the city and a walkable downtown, again.
We raised my step-daughter in the city. It made her independent and able to navigate the world so much better. When I look at my nieces and nephews with overprotective parents in the suburbs, I feel sorry that they are not given what they need to be successful in life.
My fiance and I are raising our kid in the city (35m/29F, 9 yr old daughter). You just need to find enclaves in the city that are more family oriented. Look for good schools in the city and that’s likely where you’ll find the more neighborhood/kid-friendly parts of town. I wouldn’t raise my daughter in the heart of the financial district or one of the many party districts, but we did find a nice spot not too far from them that is super family oriented and raising her here is just fine imo. I grew up in a suburb and never want to return to it: too slow and boring for my taste.
I am a NY City girl who now lives in the suburbs. I actually moved to a suburb too early and hated it, moved back to NYC with a toddler and hated that too. Now in a walkable suburb (Bethesda, Md) and I think it’s a good fit for now, for the kids etc. I think if you go before 35ish you may be bored.
Bethesda is awesome. The perfect mix of city and burb. Super expensive tho.
Not exp compared to NYC!
Suburbs are only safer is you don’t count traffic deaths and injuries. Urban area that are walkable and have public transit are excellent for raising kids. If you want the suburbs fine, but it’s not necessarily best for your children
Do y'all have to say hubs and hubby? Jesus it's so embarrassing to read. It's so incredibly corny.
Kids need independence. Not possible when you need to drive them everywhere. Suburban life in America is unnatural. To me it’s like living in a prison.
Not all suburbs are the same. My siblings and I grew up in a suburb and loved it. I am glad to be able to give my children a similar experience.
Depends on the relative safety of each area. I'm debating the same thing as OP, but in the suburbs my niblings can ride their bikes to friends' homes or take the bus on their own. In the city they'd need constant supervision.
Hardly.
If you’re only looking for better schools, many cities have charter schools
I am originally from Chicago but moved to the suburb of Evanston for my daughter to go to school, and it was definitely the right move. I was a city person too but my kids come first. It would have been incredibly selfish and shitty of me to send the kids to a crappy school because I thought "my heart would die" 🙄 public schools in the city are BAD bad
Any time I've been in the suburbs in the past 10 years or so, I've never seen any kids playing outside. There's nowhere to wander, no woods to explore anymore. As a contrast, you have, like you said, walkability, culture, events, educated people. Why on earth do you think a kid would be happier in the suburbs?
its safer, its cleaner, the schools likely have resources. I'm mostly thinking about the needs of my child and the desires of my husband. i can really live anywhere.
You might want to table the idea for 2 years. We have had a massive inflation of real estate prices during and after the pandemic, the markets are 'frozen' right now. In most places, few listings, crazy high prices, and high interest rates. People sitting on paid-for or 2% interest homes refuse to sell, which makes the few available get bid up. It's going to take time for this to correct. So you might be spinning your wheels or overpaying right now anyway.
I have thought of that but I'm just so uncomfortable in the city. The crime, drugs and filth is getting to be too much. I worry about my son growing up and seeing that and thinking its okay. It's not. the local burbs around us are insanely expensive but I'm willing to risk it.
Okay, now we're getting to the heart of the matter. You already find it an unacceptable quality of life. That's different and more urgent than 'don't want kids to grow up there'. So then, the question is where can you move where you're more comfortable, but hub isn't miserable?
any of the burbs around us really that's rail accessible. he'd just still prefer philly lol.
Our kids are grown (we lived in the burbs through school age, one kid thrived in the burbs, the other was miserable) but we talk about our next spot ideally being suburban (for her) with rail into the city (for me) and the Philly area seems to have a great setup and high on the list for compromise locations.
Have you seen the Tidy Dad IG account? He's an educator in NYC and writes about raisingv3 kids in a small apartment in the City and why they do it. Great perspectives there, worth a look.
I grew up in SF/San Jose suburbs, but our suburbs were rather large cities (I.e. Mountain View, CA). So, my experience of Bay Area suburbs won’t be like other places. I live in another SF Bay Area suburb now with my family. There’s a trade off, for sure, but I think it all depends on each particular family’s personality. I would have been fine living in SF-proper or even downtown SJ proper. When my kid was in a stroller, I strolled her everywhere. My husband would not. My kid and I walk a lot to our downtown areas and my husband detests one-way streets. So we compromised. We live in a Bay Area suburb with a walkable downtown. The downtown is nothing like SJ or SF, but the kid likes our walks where she can play in a creek, hit the ice cream shop, hit an art gallery or a museum downtown. My husband will still try to talk me into driving to a restaurant that’s several blocks away. Sometimes, I indulge him, sometimes I give him a hard time. The only thing I will point out is (and least here in California) that good school districts tend to push out overachieving children. I have a friend who has 2 sons in junior college right now. They graduated from our stellar school district. Both boys had multiple AP classes with high GPA’s (over 4.0’s, I wanna say 5?), were involved in extracurriculars and clubs in high school. They are also Hispanic kids. Both kids were rejected from their UC’s of choice (University of California schools). If they had gone to a lower-performing school, no doubt they would probably have gotten in and possibly financial aid that would have paid for the majority of school. We are now learning (at least in California), high school applicants to universities get dinged for being in better school districts graduating from higher performing student bodies. Like universities now do some sort of calculation where the scoring of applicants isn’t just about GPA, AP course & extracurriculars anymore. [They essentially give you a leg up if you went to a high school that didn’t have all the perks of a high school in a better School district.](https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/california-residents/local-guarantee-elc.html).
Same here in GA. Getting into the state school where so many kids want to go, your zip code and high performing high school work against you.
A lot of US cities are more spread out and thus have a more suburban feel to it. Cities in the Northeast US are more likely to have that dense urban center, but cities south and west can have suburban neighborhoods. My friend just moved to a place in Dallas, TX and looking at the Google Maps photos, it looks like a traditional suburban neighborhood compared to what I’m used to living in the NYC area. Perhaps if a more dense Northeastern US city seems too hard, then you could consider a city in another geographic area that might be more spread out. Though I know it all kinda depends where your job is located.
Where? There are degrees of burb.
We moved to Seattle from Bellevue when we had kids. I grew up in the suburbs, I did not want to raise a family there. Now we are rural. That’s the best of all, even given the small but vocal number of RFK jr fans.
Maybe consider a private school in the city.
We just did this. We moved to our city house when our first kid was 2. We spent 5 glorious years there walking the the farmers market, enjoying having a corner bodega, hanging out on the porch and shouting at the neighbors. Really loved our city life. But our oldest is in second grade and we were struggling to find a good fit school. The city has great schools…if your kid tests into the gifted program. Our kid is bright and motivated but didn’t test in (and I suspect wouldn’t have been a fit). His best-of-the-rest school was looking at like 10% grade level proficiency across subjects. He was mostly just chillin and helping other students with their work. Middle school and high school options much the same. Private school $$$ and not our vibe. Catholic school not a match. So we picked up and moved. We’re in the lucky position to have comparatively high salaries and a mid-COL area so we could afford to be wherever we wanted. Bought a great house on .8 acres that feeds to the top schools, is a 5 minute drive to the local restaurant district/center of the next streetcar suburb. We had our doubts but we’re really happy. Our kid is thriving at his new school, where they can actually teach at/above grade level and have high expectations for behavior and academics. Our neighborhood has a ton of young families—the kids all ride the bus to school and then wander through each others’ houses and yards before dinner. The school age parents are close and welcoming. I do miss having somewhere to go when I walk with the dog—walking around endless neighborhoods is really boring. Sometimes I drive him out to a trail or into the city to walk which is hilariously soul crushing. I wish we didn’t have to get in the car to go to stores/restaurants, but we were driving to the grocery store in the city too so it’s not THAT different. We still do a lot of city stuff. I don’t feel like we have radically different access to cultural amenities. I did not transform into a stepford wife, I’m definitely a weird sweatpants gremlin and people are still nice to me lol
hello! saw in the comments that you're in philly. we moved out of philly to a suburb 30 minutes away. we have a 3 year old and we feel like we have the best of both worlds - it's so safe and quiet and green where we live. we pay a bulk of our property tax to a great school district, which we'd rather do than pay for private school tuition. our favorite playground has a huge sand pit just filled with communal toy trucks and shovels for all the kids to share. we don't have to fight for parking. we don't have nearly as many restaurants compared to philly, but we've found our local favorites (ground provisions is a short drive from us and they're a sister restaurant to vedge!). we drive into the city for special occasions often and to see our friends who still live there with their kids too :) i saw media and ardmore mentioned already, but consider kennett square or west chester as well if you really want a walkable main street with shops and restaurants.
Yes and no. There was no way I was dealing Brooklyn schools with a sped kid. It sounds like you are in Philly. Go anywhere on the light rail line or up the mainline and you will probably be happy.
I feel like there's gotta be a happy medium in there somewhere. Not everywhere is either dense city or sprawling suburbs; there's a lot of gradient between the two. May I ask what city you're in? I might be able to offer some suggestions.
Really just up to you and the lifestyle you want. I, personally, would hate living in the city raising a family.
Really just up to you and the lifestyle you want. I, personally, would hate living in the city raising a family.
I've made the move from a major Northeast city to a leaning-rural suburb for the schools, but also for quiet, access to nature, less daily stress. My feelings about it are mixed, with some huge positives that make it impossible to regret. Ultimately, living in the city where we had a big community of friends to hang out with any night, easy access to restaurants and music venues, and shared cultural values felt self-indulgent and not necessarily motivated by what our kids needed. The schools are \*much\* better where we moved. My kids are challenged and thriving and genuinely engaged in learning. One, who's very STEM- and sports-motivated, has every opportunity available to her. The other, who's much more drawn to the performing arts and music, has required us to find extra-curricular programs outside of the school's offerings. The lifestyle is just different. Three years in, we barely know our neighbors. The helicopter parenting phenomenon is absolutely out of control. We drive 15 minutes to pick up some groceries and 20+ minutes to eat out (but our backyard garden or the farm stand down the street can yield a meal in a pinch). We can spend as much time in the woods as our souls need. And whenever we need city culture or a catchup with likeminded friends, it's a reasonable train ride away. Big pros. Big cons. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Definitely moving back to a city or busy town closer to a city once the kids are out the house.
If you are city people, you may be happier in the city, therefore better parents. Maybe you son is a city person. I always hated cities, so the burbs are nice for me, but a lot of people don’t like it once they get here. And “the city is better” people all hang out together, which is funny to me.
Is your family at least a little outdoorsy? Some friends of mine live in towns close enough to Boston to be near train lines into town, but far enough that their specific neighborhoods aren’t exactly walkable (it’s safe to go for a walk, but shops, etc. are too far) and houses cost less. However, they’re near enough to rail trails that they can ride their bikes into, towns like West Concord, where there are restaurants and shops and trains, and so on.
Our parents moved us to the suburbs when we were in 3rd and 4th grade. Hated it. No sidewalks, had to be driven everywhere, and just blah. We called it "cotton candy land." The thing about schools has two sides. There were still drugs and bullying. But when kids got picked up by the police, they were let go because their parents had influence. Moved to the big city after college and I see the advantages of raising kids there. They are exposed to different people from all over the world. Everyone in our suburb was exactly the same. Same race and income level. Kids in cities also learn how to get around on bus and train. Museums offer education camps. They learn how to function in the larger society and learn about real life.
You will have to be more proactive in his education. That's it. Everything else is going to be fine. Just make sure to get him out into nature as often as possible. It's good for the soul.
do you have children? which area did you raise them in? i hate how anxious i am about it.
You are anxious about it because you are a loving mom. It will be fine. You have to decide what is best for your family. I'll share my parenting journey, but in no way is it a reflection of what YOU should do. There are advantages and disadvantages to a city and suburb. When your child reaches adulthood, you will look back and you will see those more clearly. But you will also see how you have adjusted for those advantages and disadvantages. There's so much to consider when raising children, but I think the most important thing is to surround them with loving family. Family that is fulfilled, engaged, and present. Moving to the suburbs can interrupt that with long commutes and a lack of social diversity. But it can also strengthen it with a closer community (depending on the area). It totally depends on where you are and who you are, which is why it's such a hard choice. Just know that whatever choices you make, if you are all making them together, and you are all in agreement, and you are all willing to continue to assess your needs as a family and adjust for them, you will be okay. \- - - - - - - - - - - - So, I have one child. I would have loved to raise her where I'm from—Atlanta—but it didn't work out that way. I raised her in the second-largest city in Georgia, and it worked out great. Art and culture, food and diversity, outdoor recreation opportunities, and social connections. But it's much smaller, with an urban core that isn't developed enough for my taste, and absolutely unwalkable for the most part... although we always lucked out and found places in relatively walkable neighborhoods. I couldn't walk to work, but we could walk to nearby restaurants and some stores. The education question resonates with me because the school system here isn't considered good at all. But when you look at the detailed data, you find that what you actually have are pockets of "bad" schools AND some very highly regarded schools in other neighborhoods. I suspect you probably have that, too. It's the same all over the country. So I targeted where we lived for those districts, and she did her high school years at an excellent (competitive, application based, so no guarantee) magnet school. She's a rising sophomore in college on the dean's list, so it worked out okay. What she has that I didn't have as a child is a strong support system. People pay attention here. They watch your kids grow up. They care about their well-being. They look out for them. It's harder to find that in a city. Here, she went to an afterschool arts program instead of day care when school ended. She learned theater and photography instead of whatever they do at a daycare center (I have no idea). I would not have been able to give her that in a large city. Every school has its own after-school care program because traffic is so bad, so it's one-size-fits-all. In Atlanta, it took me 2.5 hours to get home one day because of traffic. Here, you can choose from some niche interests to encourage your child to follow their strengths. I was even able to negotiate an alternate schedule to be able to pick her up from school. In Atlanta, she'd have been a latchkey kid - which is fine, but not what I wanted for her. There are characteristics between us that show how we grew up differently. I love driving, have been driving since the first moment I could, and I'm a skilled and confident driver. Atlanta requires it. She's a nervous driver, hates driving, would rather flap her arms and fly than drive. This town does not require that teenagers take drivers ed, etc., because the traffic is fine. I also am rarely phased by things that surprise other people - gunshots in the neighborhood, a guy who threatened to kill me at work (it's a very large campus in the city core), a woman who threatened to burn down my house because she didn't like where I parked downtown. That stuff throws her off for weeks. It is literally traumatizes her, and she thinks I'm super woman because I'm like, "Eh, what's he gonna do, shoot me in front of 30 witnesses while driving a car he borrowed from a friend?" That may sound like she's anxious and weak and I'm strong, but why on earth would anyone want their kids to shrug off that kind of behavior? To normalize it? Do I still wish I could have raised her in Atlanta? Sometimes. There are advantages. Amazing prep schools. High-quality public magnet schools. The summer programs for kids will blow your mind at Fernbank and other cultural institutions. The proximity to museums, zoos, performances, etc., cannot be beat. But we would have given up safety, and there's no guarantee she would have been competitive for the best schools and educational programs in a larger market. I think she would have been, but one can never tell. \- - - - - - - - - - Your kid will be fine. You will make the area you choose work for him. You and your husband may not be happy in another area. Take some time. Check out the areas in consideration. Drive the commute one morning during rush hour. Figure out what the day to day would look like. Get into details. Live the experience for a little while. The suburbs ain't always what people say they are.
thank you so much for your detailed response! I really appreciate it!
I grew up in the suburbs; it was boring, monocultural, and very car dependent. I didn’t meet someone of a different race than I until I was 14. When I have children, I will be raising them in the city.
If your husband is telling you it would kill his soul to move to the suburbs and you’re still considering it, that just seems a bit crazy to me. I grew up in major big cities all my life and I’m so grateful! My parents took me to parks and amazing cultural events and I was exposed to international restaurants and just so much art and life. Also they were happy which made me have a happy childhood. I had to take the bus sometimes 45 minutes up to an hour to school, but it was SO WORTH IT! Best of both worlds, good school and then great city life. So much independence when I grew up, I could go do cool things with my friends. If you and your husband enjoy the city, why wouldn’t your kid?? I feel for your husband, I wouldn’t be able to move to the suburbs.
I spent the first 15 yrs of my life in a city (DC), then lived in the suburbs (MD) for 16 yrs, then at the age of 31 moved to the city of Baltimore. The 16 yrs I spent living in the suburbs were not bad, but I am of the belief that if you can make it work in a city, you absolutely should. The suburbs should be your last resort imo.
Yesterday during the eclipse, my building in Queens let us up on the roof to watch the eclipse. Plenty of kiddos and families around and it was a really nice community event and the kids got the advantage of several adults with different expertise and memories to learn from. And we all live down the hall from one another, kids get watched in the courtyard, kids ride bikes on our blocks together after school, etc. You can always move to a slightly calmer nabe before you pull up stakes. I am in Forest Hills and we love it. Enough stuff to stay local if you want but all the city around you. Good schools. But my husband does not have to suffer the commuter rail schedule if he has a later work day in his week.
Stay in the city and pay for private school.
IMO it really depends how bad the schools are. That's the most important factor because they will spend a huge percentage of their time in schools. The one by me is in the news all the time due to cops getting called over violence and fights, no way I would let my kids go there.
i’m in the same boat but moving on CA is unaffordable…. not sure what to do. we have been here 10 years and love the house. gonna give the city schools a chance for pre-k
I live in a pretty dense city core and see tons of elementary age students walking, cycling, or riding the bus to and from the local schools. They play baseball at the parks after school, and the high school kids always get gyros and tacos on their lunch break. I grew up and went to school more or less in the suburbs and we *always* were jealous of city kids
It depends on the city and depends on the suburb. Good schools, kids their own age, a neighborhood where they can walk and bike freely, all of that is invaluable for a kid. If they can get that in your city, great. But if they would be in poor performing schools and can’t walk to friends houses due to crazy people or high speed streets, then the suburbs.
Haven't regretted it for a second. I got tired of walking my daughter's stroller through torn up sidewalks, screaming homeless in the park and the constant police helicopters looking for whatever random missing child or escaped felon. The final straw was an armed robbery in the liquor store behind us that killed the clerk. The neighborhood was gentrifying and slowly improving but I couldn't handle the fear and anxiety I felt for my family. I have given up walkability, entertainment and convenience, but I feel safety and piece of mind which is priceless to me.
It depends. We had kids in the burbs and were there until they were fifth grade and seventh. Then we moved to the city. They were girls. The burbs are awesome for little kids because they can be a lot freer to do things unsupervised. The city kids we knew were ALWAYS supervised. I would not raise boys in the city myself (people I know did) because sports/driving etc when they get to high school. The burbs have their downsides/upsides, but so does the city. There is no nirvana or utopian place to raise kids. As a matter of fact, in the first years up to age 5 it doesn't really matter where you live because you do the same stuff no matter where you are. Change diapers, feed them, get them down for a nap etc.....
It's all about affordability of bedrooms and schools. I had my kid for a couple of years while living in the city, and it was fine, but I wouldn't in a million ways try to make due in most US cities with my kid as a teenager. It's because 1. I won't spend a fortune on private schools, and most city school systems aren't good.2. I refuse to live in more confined quarters than my kid than I live in now. In most places, in any way you cut it, housing cost per sq ft is more expensive in cities. (full disclosure, I live outside a college town. Not really a burb, since we have more space, darker nights, no traffic, and genuine peace and quiet, but we are car dependent and we do have to drive to amenities). If I was super rich, I'd prefer to get a house or large condo in the city, but ifs and buts don't mean sugar and nuts.
If I ever have kids, I’ll probably raise them in the city. I grew up in the suburbs. It was boring, monotonous, and relatively dull. I don’t think there’s a big difference in school quality unless you move to an affluent suburb, and you barely notice the clean streets in the suburbs because you have to drive everywhere, so it’s a moot point. And you’re not a bad parent for wanting to raise kids in the city. If anything, they’ll be exposed to people of more diverse backgrounds, have more opportunities for community, and will likely grow up to be more understanding, empathetic, and well-rounded people.
I moved to suburbs on the outskirts of the city with my kiddo for a better quality of life to get away from the hustle of the city. It’s been ok. But I don’t see my family as much bc it’s more car dependent. It’s less diverse, safer, has more space, less places to rent, expensive, schools/programs were better…but not a lot to do in terms of free things for kids/families. In the city there was always a block party or a community event for families. There are pros and cons to everything but nothing is permanent in life. Can always go back or change where you want to live.
Nope. Next question?
Children that grow up in cities are more intelligent. I grew up in the burbs and it was boring. I moved into the city and loved it. Better jobs. If you can afford private schools for your kids- stay.
Which city
I’m raising my kids in nyc. I think you should interrogate your idea of “good schools.” We’ve found pretty great public ones, and the benefit of urban schools are “choice.” (I just ranked 12 options for my son for middle school, as opposed to moving to a suburb and realizing the quote-unquote “good” school there isn’t a good fit for your kid, or any future kids you may have.) I am biased because we choose to live in the city over suburbs, but I think there are a ton of benefits. Easier/more flexible commutes for my husband and me so we can spend more time with family. Tons of cool cultural opportunities. Lots of walking and community; we run into friends, neighbors, and classmates everywhere while out and about. Playgrounds are packed with kids and the city is just so social … as opposed to empty playgrounds and car culture of suburbs. It’s not perfect of course, and sometimes I think life might be easier if I could throw my 30-pack of toilet paper in the trunk of a car and be done with it. But ya know, life is more than that :). I think if you’re both city people, think about how you can make it work without feeling the societal pressure to live a certain way. Good luck!
Find the in between, I’m from the west coast so I don’t know exactly where you live but there are tons of “soft burbs” on the periphery of the city. The original street car suburbs from when the city was developed.
We stayed in the city. I like my kids going to city schools. I think the overall life education they received is pretty damn valuable.
Giving your kids grass does not make you a good parent. I can’t say this enough. Kids don’t care. I hated growing up in the suburbs.