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Personally, being born, raised, and largely educated in NYC, absolutely. I went to Young People's concerts at Carnegie Hall, saw My Fair Lady in its original Broadway run with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, went to the Thanksgiving Day parade every year. I grew up thinking that it's NORMAL to have a city populated by people who come from all over the world, speak multiple languages and eat things other than hamburgers. Hands down, a GREAT place for kids to grow up. There are also multiple opportunities for community service for kids growing up: volunteering in hospitals, schools, etc., making it apparent that there are also the less fortunate.
Is NY better for raising toddlers, elementary school age children compared to the southern states - Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Arkansas ?
More stuff to do for kids - more enriching life ?
it's a very interesting place for a kid to grow up, and it helps of the parents are fairly wealthy so as to be able to afford the many opportunities. Private school is almost a must and in manhattan tuition can be insanely expensive.
So if you are well to do, NYC is am ok place for a kid.
If you want more a traditionl situation for bringing up kids or if you're not wealthy you might want to consider those other places.
Its only a nice place to raise kids if you are upper-middle or upper class.
Lower-class people make due on all of the handouts and welfare programs, but they aren't raising any rocket scientists in the PJs, so don't expect much.
The Middle class are really the people getting screwed in this whole situation because the public schools aren't really that good, and public school tuition is too expensive for your average middle class family. As a result middle class families continue to flee the city in droves.
By NYC standards to live comfortably in Manhatan I think you need a combined income of at least around $150k-$200k a year. In the outer boroughs though you can easily have a fairly comfortable lifestyle on $75k-$100k a year.
The public schools in NYC are pretty bad. During grade school they're usually decent, but after that, in Middle School and High School, things tend to take a turn for the worse. A lot of the problems with the schools could be changed if there was a return back to regular neighborhood schools. That's not going to happen anytime soon though, mainly for political reasons.
Actually one of the High Schools in Jersey City is consistently ranked as the best public school in the state of NJ. The name of it escapes me now though. This school in JC, like Bedford Stuyvesant and Bronx Science are public schools that have an application/admissions process. Thats the reason they are ranked so high
You have to be able to afford an apartment in the areas of those good schools. For example, for P.S. 6, a one bedroom apartment can EASILY run to 700,000 to well over a million dollars. It all depends on the neighborhood....That's why private schools are overflowing. Also, the middle schools are pretty awful. However, getting into a private school is no piece of cake - the kids have to take the ERB test, go for an interview, etc. And competition is fierce.
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