Childless Cities

America’s falling birth rates will translate into demographic changes in the country that will reverberate for decades to come. One place they are already showing up is in the share of the population with children in many places, particularly big cities.

New research from the Economic Innovation Group found that the number of children under the age of five has declined in two-thirds of all counties since 2020, with large urban counties leading the way. These big cities saw a major decline in their number of children during the Covid pandemic. While this decline in the number of children has slowed, it continues to be the fastest shrinkage of any size class of counties in the country. But declines are pervasive, with only exurban counties showing growth in their under-age-five population. The Sunbelt in particular continues to be the standout region for growth to the extent there is one.

New York City saw its number of children under the age of five shrink by 18.3%; San Francisco’s has fallen by 15.4%, and Cook County, Illinois’ (Chicago) by 14.6%. My own analysis shows that among counties with a population greater than 500,000, Manhattan (New York County) and San Francisco have the lowest share of population who are children (under age 18). Derek Thompson at The Atlantic called this a “free fall,” pointing out that many of these counties “are on pace to lose 50 percent of their under-5 population in 20 years.”

These big cities are dominated by the political left, with no Republican power at either the local or state level. Thompson considers the fall in the number of children there as evidence of a progressive governance problem, particularly the inability of these big cities to build sufficient housing to prevent a spike in prices. In his view, it’s hard for progressives to argue credibly that they have the best ideas for American families, when people with children can’t afford to live in the places they control completely.

The cost issue is real, but there are other factors at work. Big, progressive cities have embraced a soft on crime approach, as evidenced by policies such as the virtual abolition of cash bail in New York to movements like “defund the police.” While crime remains well below its early 90s peak, crime and disorder remain elevated versus the pre-pandemic levels, and loud constituencies in cities argue against enforcing laws and standards of behavior in urban environments. This intersects with significant homeless and migrant populations that reduce the feeling among parents that these cities are a safe and appropriate place for young children. Simply put, crime and disorder are kryptonite to families with kids.

But it’s questionable whether these cities will even want to make things better for children. Most people tend to focus on their own needs, preferences, and interests. With big cities increasingly made up of singles or those without children, the constituency for family-friendly policies is smaller than elsewhere. It’s also the case that the Democratic Party disproportionately attracts singles, with a whopping 72% of never-married women preferring it. Hence, the party caters to the interests of singles and those without children. As the recent kerfuffle over JD Vance’s comments about “cat ladies” shows, Democrats seem to be more interested in defending the amour-propre of the childless than pushing to create family-friendly environments.

A decline in the number of children also means painful choices for many cities. Schools will have to be closed, which is always very controversial. There may be a reduction in services and programming, or even non-school facilities for children as the number of potential patrons declines. This is the logic of the urban “doom loop,” only applied to children rather than tax revenues from office space. Fewer kids mean fewer amenities for kids, which in turn makes these cities less attractive to families.

But perhaps increasingly childless cities are inevitable, even if urban progressive leaders wanted to do something about it. Years ago, someone quipped that there weren’t enough yuppies to go around to save Detroit. Similarly, there simply aren’t enough children around anymore to prevent declines in most places. 

Sometimes decline produces pooling. When economic opportunity declined in Rust Belt cities, many people left in search of better opportunity elsewhere. Similarly, perhaps families will move to the places where other families are moving, increasingly concentrating in suburban exurbs in the Sunbelt. 

Just as we have retirement communities, perhaps in the future America will be dotted with child-raising communities where couples go when they have children. There will still be children everywhere, but they won’t be the major part of every community they once were when America’s birth rates were much higher.

Aaron M. Renn is a co-founder and Senior Fellow at American Reformer. His writings appear at aaronrenn.com.

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