Is The Tech Industry Driving Families Out of San Francisco? (nytimes.com)

Why does San Francisco now have fewer children per capita than any of America's largest 100 cities? An anonymous reader writes: A move to the suburbs began in the 1970s, but "The tech boom now reinforces the notion that San Francisco is a place for the young, single and rich," according to the New York Times. "When we imagine having kids, we think of somewhere else," one software engineer tells the paper. The article describes "neighborhoods where employees of Google, Twitter and so many other technology companies live or work" where the sidewalks make it seem "as if life started at 22 and ended somewhere around 40."

Or is San Francisco just part of a larger trend? "California, which has one of the world's 10 largest economies, recently released data showing the lowest birthrate since the Great Depression. And the Los Angeles Times argues California's experience may just be following national trends. The drop "likely stems from the recession, a drop in teenage pregnancies and an increase in people attending college and taking longer to graduate, therefore putting off having children, said Walter Schwarm, a demographer at the Department of Finance."
So is this part of a larger trend -- or something unique about San Francisco? The New York Times also quotes Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, who believes technology workers are putting off families when they move to the Silicon Valley area because they anticipate long working hours. There's also complaints about San Francisco's public school system -- 30% of its children now attend private schools, the highest percentage of any large American city. But according to the article, Peter Thiel believes that San Francisco is just "structurally hostile to families."

Comments

As a tech worker with kids...

[slk]

San Francisco does a pretty good job keeping us out. Lousy schools, enough crime to be a real problem (especially since Prop 47), major homeless issues, and a terrible commute to the cites with jobs (2 hours each way = never seeing your kids).

Could we get a list of these?

[guises]

I haven't really wanted to live in San Francisco before, but this article is making a pretty good case for it. Are there other cities, worldwide, which are largely childless? Is there a list? I am willing to learn a new language.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes

[aoism]

I lived childless in the inner sunset of SF for 10 years, from 2005 until 2015, and I've never seen such a kid unfriendly city in my life. Try pushing a stroller/pram through neighborhood grocery store aisles, or bringing them on the bus, and you'll get the sneer of your live from the people who feel like your impeding their travels. Do you live in a decent neighborhood? Well, chances are your kid won't go to a school near you. They get entered in to a lottery, and they may have to bused 2 hrs round trip across the city to go to a school in bayview, because they are trying to integrate the bad and good schools. Do you like poop? because your 2 or 3 year old will step and play in human poop as they walk down the sidewalk.

My wife and I aren't dot com millionaires, so for us, the threat of being evicted from our rent controlled apartments was too much to bear if we had a kid. We didn't like the prospect of raising a kid in a 600 sqft 'starter' home for 750k either. That money could be spent on the kids education if we moved to a more affordable place, so we did. We bought a 6 bedroom, 3500 sqft place in Austin for 300k, and had our first of hopefully 2 natural 1 adopted kids. We have a backyard with a tree house in it, there are neighborhood kids playing in the streets every night, and he will have at most a 10 minute commute by foot to the best schools in the city. All of that money we would've paid in to the privilege of an SF condo is now in his college fund. We love the bay area so much but it's not a place for kids at all.