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The Ingredients for Pro-Kid Cities

Former Seattle Planning Commissioner Sarah Snider Komppa spent months visiting and comparing 10 North American cities to answer the following questions: What makes dense urban areas attractive to kids and parents? Why do some give up and move to the suburbs? What are the necessary ingredients to support families living downtown? What policy changes do we need to make?

Komppa took the time to answer some questions about what her travels and research in Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, and Vancouver BC can teach the Northwest about ingredients for family-friendly cities.

Q: First of all, if I’m someone without kids, why should I read this?

A: Cities that are great for children are great for everybody. Think about what type of transportation system you might want to ride as a young single woman in the city. If it’s safe for a 12-year-old to ride a transit system alone, then it’s probably safe for you. If there’s a neighborhood that’s safe for a ten-year-old to walk across the street and play with his friends and walk home to his apartment building, that park is probably going to be pretty enjoyable for seniors or young professionals in the city.

Families Biking Downtown, by Christopher Porter
Families Biking Downtown (Vancouver BC) by Christopher Porter used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Taking kids’ needs into account and having a mix of ages in a city just enhances its sustainability and longevity over time because you’re not constantly trying to reinvent the wheel—it just works for everyone.

Q: How does kid-friendly housing look different from the condos and apartments more commonly built today?

A: Outdoor communal space—whether that’s a courtyard or rooftop or podium deck—is really important. You need to have some place for kids to be outside. You also need to have indoor community space that’s flexible. In New York, they build internal playgrounds or playrooms and parents or caregivers just come down with the kids. Sound isolation is important, though I would argue that’s important whether you have a barking dog or a screaming baby. Ground floor bike storage is important for singles and young parents, and it also works for strollers too.

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Where Are the Northwest’s Kids?

Once they have kids, families move out of the city and opt for the big house, picket fence, and longer commute. That’s the story we’ve all heard. But the reality is that—at least over the last 12 years—the Northwest’s biggest cities have done a much better job of attracting and retaining kids than their suburban and rural counterparts.

Yes, it remains true that, like most other big cities, Seattle and Portland have a smaller share of kids than their suburban neighbors. In 2012, 13.5 percent of Seattle’s population was under 15, compared to nearly 20 percent for the rest of the state. In Portland, 16.4 percent of the population was under 15, compared to nearly 19 percent for the rest of Oregon. But this “child gap” has existed for decades in Seattle, and it widened the fastest during the 1960s and 1970s. Nowadays, the gap is closing.

Recently, the Northwest’s densest cities have bucked powerful demographic trends and managed to retain families with kids, something few other places have done. From 2000 to 2012, Seattle saw dramatic growth in its number of children under 15, outpacing the rest of the state and the country.

Original Sightline Institute graphic, available under our Free Use Policy.
Original Sightline Institute graphic, available under our Free Use Policy.

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Illegal Play

My kid is a rule follower. She would rather cut off her leg than be in trouble, wants stories told precisely the same way every time, lives to enforce playground rules, and for most of her toddler years wanted to grow up to be a crossing guard.

This bugs a person like me. I worry that I’m not providing her with opportunities to test boundaries, develop independence, be resourceful, strike out on adventures, make questionable choices, and have the run of our neighborhood. But as a parent raising a five-year-old in a fairly urban environment, I first really need her to stop forgetting to look for cars.

In the meantime, our default is to head to one of the Northwest’s great public parks, beaches, or playgrounds. Yet my worst fears about her stunted opportunities for play were recently reinforced in this stunning accounting of things that are technically illegal for kids to do there.

Like climbing trees, catching frogs, erecting a fort, turning sticks into light sabers, digging a hole, throwing rotten apples, or making a daisy chain.

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Babes on Bikes II

biking at the locks

Since the first Babes on Bikes post, Audrey and I have gone on a couple longer rides together and despite some wobbles here and there I’m really getting the hang of it. We had a blast riding from Montlake to the Ballard farmers’ market on the Burke Gilman trail, rolling past hundreds of women half-marathon runners (Audrey thought everyone on the sidelines was cheering for us.)

Also since the first post, all kinds of new photos and resources have poured in from readers. So, here’s Babes on Bikes II—more family-biking eye-candy and more community support, city bike infrastructure data, bicycle advocacy efforts, and helpful ideas.

Babes on Bikes

How Luc keeps his hands warm!

My daughter will turn three this year, and we just enrolled her in preschool! With all our childcare at home to date, we’ve been lucky to avoid lots of extra running around with the kid. So, no sooner had we signed little Audrey up for preschool than we began to fret about the logistics of getting her to and fro—without royally complicating our lives.

It’s a bit too far to walk, and since I try to commute as often as possible by bike, it seemed counterproductive to go the few miles by car. What would I do with the car? Drive back home and then hop on my bike? I don’t think so! Drive to work and pay to park downtown? No way!

So, I started to investigate my options for conveying my babe by bike—it appears to be the most convenient and sensible solution.