Truth is, I wish we talked a lot more about making cities as kid-friendly as possible. The topic is often overlooked. That’s why it was fascinating to see Derek Thompson’s article, “The Urban Family Exodus Is a Warning For Progressives” get so much traction. He clearly touched a nerve. Today, I give my take in this solo podcast. As a father, as someone that loves cities, and someone that is in fact deeply concerned about the trendlines, I share my observations. This one gets a little personal. Ground I cover includes: 1. How parents really feel about their kids 2. What life in American cities is really like 3. How things are different now from the historic norm in the US 4. What parents really prioritize, not what we wish them to prioritize 5. What cities can do 6. How cities *could* be amazing Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page . Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here . If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5. Intro: “ Why Be Friends ” Outro: “ Fairweather Friend ” Episode Transcript: Kevin K (00:01.824) Welcome back to the Messy City podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg flying solo today, doing an episode in a way that I've done occasionally in the past, but I haven't done a little while. I've had some amazing guests. I've got some more coming up and I love talking to people other than myself primarily in this gig, but it is fun once in a while to just riff on something that's in the news or on my mind. And that's what I'm going to do today. I do want to take a second and say thank you to all of you who are listening and following. The podcast has really grown a lot in audience the last six months. And I really appreciate everybody tuning in. And if you get a chance, please hit that like or follow button. Leave me a review on your podcast platform, especially if you're on Apple. Apple is the biggest podcast platform by far. So if you're listening through Apple podcasts, I'd really appreciate it if you gave the show a rating. All of that stuff helps get attraction and grow the audience. And the bigger the audience, the better I will be able to be at providing you all with really good programming and interesting guests and the ability to try to help us all out as we navigate how to improve our cities, how to improve our own situation. if you're a, a small developer or an aspiring small developer, try to become one. if you are someone who's just interested in cities and planning to do whatever you can do to make your community a better place to live and, and, help us, help us all out in our own little world. So that's the point. That's what I'm trying to do here. And, I hope you enjoy it judging by the numbers. A lot of you are enjoying it. So that's really cool. And, it's, It's definitely a lot of fun for me. So with that, I want to talk about an article that's made the rounds a lot lately and a topic that I've seen discussed in social media and elsewhere. And it really has to do with the subject of families and big cities. And a lot of this most, the most recent flurry of discussion happened at Kevin K (02:25.002) as the result of an article in the Atlantic by Derek Thompson titled, The Urban Family Exodus is a Warning for Progressives. And I'm going to commit a cardinal sin here today where I'm going to talk about this topic without having read the actual article. So forgive me for that, but I will say I have read many, many articles on this topic. And what I really want to talk about today is just kind of my own experience as a father, as a parent, and my own interaction and evolution on this issue. Because I think there's an awful lot in the context of this subject that we just don't talk very much about. Especially those of us who are in this tiny, tiny niche of people who call themselves urbanists, who care about cities, who care about development in cities. There's an awful lot tied into this issue that overlaps with others that we've talked about here before, but I think there's some that's really specific about having kids that I'd just like to dive into. So the context really in Derek's article, I did see some of the numbers. I don't have them in front of me. You can find them. out there, it's not hard to find. But the context was that people with children are continuing to move out of big cities. That this trend really started in the early COVID years, 2020, 2021, and has not really abated. so the article really was kind of a warning, especially to people in some of the larger cities in the country, the places like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, et cetera, that people who have a choice, who have kids have continued to leave. And so that is why he says it's a warning. I guess I would say right off, right up front, I think this should be a concern for everybody. I don't think it should be a concern just for somebody who calls themselves a progressive. I've always had the opinion that Kevin K (04:42.818) Com
