Cities are Great Places to Raise Kids

I recently participated in a planning session for downtown Indianapolis that included cultural and civic leaders who I would generally consider very pro-urban Indianapolis. As the conversation turned toward the urgent need to recruit more taxpayers into city neighborhoods, one of my colleagues stated that it really wasn’t practical to raise a middle-class family in the city, and many others agreed. Well, as a father of three young adults raised in urban Indy, this strong sentiment shocked me. I mistakenly thought that city living had become popular enough that young parents would now consider an urban lifestyle a viable alternative for raising their children. The following is my personalized attempt to convince skeptics that urban Indy is a great place to raise a family.

Schools are the most obvious barrier urban family living, with IPS’s chronically-weak overall academic performance dominating this issue. However, Urban Indy now has the greatest concentration of innovative schools in the state, with a growing list of public and private schools that are at the top of regional academic performance. In fact, a recent analysis by IFF showed that downtown was very well-served by its schools in comparison with other areas of the county. My children have received an excellent education in urban schools…it just required more intentional parental involvement to find and support these schools.

After concerns about schools, the biggest objection to urban childrearing is a concern over safety. A close examination of real safety in the city reveals that crime must be separated into two categories: violent crime that largely impacts people (or their families) engaged in illegal activity, and property/nuisance crimes that isn’t dangerous but frustrates a much larger number of people. There are essentially “parallel universes” of safety and violence in the city that almost never intersect. In 21 years of living downtown, none of my children have experienced a violent act.

The perception that urban neighborhoods house only the very poor and small clusters of young singles is another argument made against urban living for children. This argument seems to be based on the assumption that kids thrive when surrounded by children and families like theirs, as is often the case in newer suburban areas. However, I really believe that the mix of young professionals, empty-nesters, college students, and elderly people, (and a growing number of like-minded families) has enriched childhood for my kids, equipping them to interact with a wide range of people around them.

The suburbs are designed around recreational facilities for families, so many assume that the city lacks places for children and young adults to interact. While downtown may not have the density of youth sports and recreational amenities of newer suburbs, it offers unique sports opportunities downtown like gymnastics, fencing, synchronized swimming, and cycling, that are world-class and unavailable in the suburbs, that have opened up amazing scholarship and travel opportunities to urban kids. These sports are complemented by an array of parks, libraries, and museums that provide educational and recreational activities at low cost and can be accessed on a bicycle or a bus when parents are unavailable to play taxi.

Finally, I think that kids who grow up immersed in the complex beauty and ugliness of urban culture are more likely to mature quickly and skip the typical anger and alienation from family and surrounding culture experienced by so many teenagers. It is hard to feel that this year’s family vacation or beater car your parents let you drive aren’t good enough when you know families that can’t even afford one car that could make it to another city. The peer pressure to conform that causes so much suburban angst is far less potent at an urban school with so many distinct sub-cultures that there is no dominant model of conformity. I believe that the experience of growing up in new schools and neighborhoods struggling to revitalize themselves has given my children a big, compelling cause to be part of that puts real demands on their intellect and unites them with their parents, neighbors, and teachers. What more could parents want for their children?