"I Can't Live Downtown, I Have Children!"

[Damnitjanet]

Attached are links to a couple of maps. The first map is a map of the area by census tracts. Why I linked to it is that its very easy to see a number associated with a census tract. There is a subbox on the chart for the downtown and East Sac area where you can see the numbers associated with a census tract.

http://www.sacog.org/mapping/censusmaps/sacct.pdf

It may be easieser to see this by opening up this link on two different tabs and scrolling back and forth between the two. But if you go here and click on the 1990 and the 2000 census tract maps, then click on the family structure subcategory and then click on the percent of households with families you can see the change in proportion of families in these different census tracts change between the two periods.

Social Explorer - Demographic Maps

In 1990, the downtown grid already had one of the lowest densities of families with children in the region. But between 1990 and 2000, the situtation gets worse.

The number of households with children fell in census tract 4,5,6, held steady in 7,8 and 10 but those areas were in the lowest scale on the map, held steady in tract 9, lost households with children in tract 11, held steady in tract 12 and 14, fell in 13, 19 and 20 and held steady in tract 21.

The downtown grid starts off with one of the lowest proportions of households with kids in the region and basically the situtation for households with kids get worse between 1990 and 2000. In none of these census tracts do we see an uptick in the proportion of households with children.

The reason I say that the downtown grid is bad for people with kids is because people are voting with their feet. The area has proportionately few households with children and the situation gets worse over time. Moreover the census tracts that were gentrifying the most during this period were also the census tracts where the situation was the most acute.

The reason I think the proportion of families in the grid is going to fall in 2010 is because I am merely projecting forward the process that has been going on between 1990 and 2000. Households with kids are being priced out of neighborhood for all of the reasons I have been going through in our dialogue over the past several days.

You also took issues with my comment here where I was dismissive of the coolness trap.

Originally Posted by Damnitjanet

The coolness trap is a function of disposable incomes. You need to have a certain amount of disposable income to engage in that type of frivolity. But for any given income level the people without kids have larger disposable incomes than the people with kids.

I am dismissive of it basically because I don't think it works.

If you look at the people you really care about who really care about you, its your wife, your parents, maybe grandparents (if they are still living) and any siblings that you and your wife have. Add some friends, some people you have known all your life and some people you know at work. Basically I am putting in this category anyone you might invite to a wedding or attend your funeral.

These people pretty much accept you for who you are. These people really don't care whether you do or do not have a new bmw. So buying stuff to impress these people really doesn't matter.

Outside that group of people most of the other people in your life are pretty self absorbed. These people may exchange social pleasantries with you, but for the most part these people are too self-absorbed to worry about what you are doing. If you buy a new bmw, again these people might say its nice to be polite but really they too really don't care about you or what things you possess. They are too preoccupied with themselves.

What the people in your life do seem to care about is your character. That is revealed in how you interact with other people, not from things you buy.

Why I see the persuit of coolness as a trap is that its wasted effort. If you want to win the respect an admiration of more people, be a better person to the people in your life, but don't buy something thinking that somehow people will think more of you for doing so. It doesn't work that way. Other people really just don't care.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by Damnitjanet

The reason I think the proportion of families in the grid is going to fall in 2010 is because I am merely projecting forward the process that has been going on between 1990 and 2000. Households with kids are being priced out of neighborhood for all of the reasons I have been going through in our dialogue over the past several days.

The problem is, the grid has become a very different place during the last decade. I have lived in the central city since 1993, and the 1990s were essentially the end of a half-century exodus from the central city, but that trend is over. Since 2000, things have changed very, very much: lots of new construction, lots of new ideas and attitudes, lots of new faces, and lots of new families. Maybe we should place bets on where the 2010 trends will end up going, but my wager would be on an increase in the number of families since 2000.

At least in part, this is because the perception of downtown Sacramento in 2009 is a far cry from what it was in 1990. When I moved downtown, people thought I was crazy, even as a single person in my 20s--it was a scary, dangerous place to many in the suburbs, and even I will admit that it was quite a bit sketchier then. Since then, perceptions have shifted a great deal, to the point where people around the state and the country are hearing about midtown Sacramento in the same tones as up-and-coming urban districts in other cities. That change in perception means more than just an ego trip--it is an expression of how the central city has changed in the real world.

Why I see the persuit of coolness as a trap is that its wasted effort. If you want to win the respect an admiration of more people, be a better person to the people in your life, but don't buy something thinking that somehow people will think more of you for doing so. It doesn't work that way. Other people really just don't care.

I take issue with your assumption that the only reason to live in the grid is this kind of showboating--but keeping up with the Joneses is hardly limited to the central city. I don't drive a new BMW, I drive a 20 year old station wagon (when I drive, which isn't often.) I don't wear designer clothes, I'm a die-hard clearance sale/thrift store shopper. I have some friends who drive new BMWs and others that don't even own a car, and frankly I don't give a damn what they drive, and neither do they. And, as I mentioned before, I don't dine a Biba every night--usually, I make dinner at home, in my own kitchen.

There are plenty of reasons for central city living beyond the kind of superficiality you are claiming. I don't live downtown because I want people to think I'm a hotshot, I do it because I love beautiful old buildings--not just looking at them, but living in them, fixing them up, walking among them, working to preserve them. I also love walking to work instead of driving, encountering my neighbors on the street, and engaging in the richness of central city life that has nothing whatsoever to do with how wealthy you are. I'm also sparing the air from just a little bit of pollution, and the streets from traffic--not much, but the bit I have control over. The culture of the central city is also a powerful attraction--not just the trendy social scene, which personally I don't care for and don't participate in, but the energetic and interesting arts and music communities, community activism, museums and historic sites. And it is those communities that are becoming more kid-centric too: whether it's "Art Beast" kid-centered art lessons or concerts in the park with dedicated kid zones, or parent/child sleepovers at the Railroad Museum or the Auto Museum.

Meanwhile, suburbs, especially the fancy ones, are pretty notorious for people judging you by your car, how big your McMansion is, the designer label on your clothes or handbag. Or your kids--what brand-name stroller or car-seat carrier you got, what exclusive schools they got into, how they're doing at soccer or softball. People who use their kids as extensions of their own egos because they don't have a life beyond child-rearing. Some even judge people who don't have kids as inferior or irresponsible.

That's just as much of a shallow, frivolous lifestyle as anything you're trying to pin on me--but it takes place in the suburbs too. Because suburbs are so economically segregated, not fitting into the economic or social profile of your suburb can make one the subject of scorn and derision. I moved out of the suburbs because I was sick of that garbage, so don't even try to tell me it doesn't exist.

[angelbug]

Originally Posted by wburg

Meanwhile, suburbs, especially the fancy ones, are pretty notorious for people judging you by your car, how big your McMansion is, the designer label on your clothes or handbag. Or your kids--what brand-name stroller or car-seat carrier you got, what exclusive schools they got into, how they're doing at soccer or softball. People who use their kids as extensions of their own egos because they don't have a life beyond child-rearing.

I saw MUCH more of that in San Francisco than I do in Davis...and I have friends with kids who live in Orangevale where it's practically non-existent. I think it depends on the part of the city or the kind of suburb you live in, and that you can't generalize. No one I associated with in SF or here in Davis had/has designer anything, and most of them disdain fancy cars. But I'm sure there are people in both places who DO have those things, and frankly, so what if they do? Putting someone down for owning a designer handbag or fancy stroller is just as snobby as thinking highly of them because they do, it's just snobby in reverse.

[Damnitjanet]

Originally Posted by wburg

The problem is, the grid has become a very different place during the last decade. I have lived in the central city since 1993, and the 1990s were essentially the end of a half-century exodus from the central city, but that trend is over. Since 2000, things have changed very, very much: lots of new construction, lots of new ideas and attitudes, lots of new faces, and lots of new families. Maybe we should place bets on where the 2010 trends will end up going, but my wager would be on an increase in the number of families since 2000.

At least in part, this is because the perception of downtown Sacramento in 2009 is a far cry from what it was in 1990. When I moved downtown, people thought I was crazy, even as a single person in my 20s--it was a scary, dangerous place to many in the suburbs, and even I will admit that it was quite a bit sketchier then. Since then, perceptions have shifted a great deal, to the point where people around the state and the country are hearing about midtown Sacramento in the same tones as up-and-coming urban districts in other cities. That change in perception means more than just an ego trip--it is an expression of how the central city has changed in the real world.

In the grid the population was increasing between 1990 and 2000. During this period there wasn't an exodus of people, but a change in the composition of people living there. Basically the households with kids left/ were pushed out by gentrification.

I am convinced going forward this trend will continue. If we are both around when the census data information is released in 2012, whoever is right gets to buy the other person a beer.

Originally Posted by wburg

I take issue with your assumption that the only reason to live in the grid is this kind of showboating--but keeping up with the Joneses is hardly limited to the central city. I don't drive a new BMW, I drive a 20 year old station wagon (when I drive, which isn't often.) I don't wear designer clothes, I'm a die-hard clearance sale/thrift store shopper. I have some friends who drive new BMWs and others that don't even own a car, and frankly I don't give a damn what they drive, and neither do they. And, as I mentioned before, I don't dine a Biba every night--usually, I make dinner at home, in my own kitchen.

There are plenty of reasons for central city living beyond the kind of superficiality you are claiming. I don't live downtown because I want people to think I'm a hotshot, I do it because I love beautiful old buildings--not just looking at them, but living in them, fixing them up, walking among them, working to preserve them. I also love walking to work instead of driving, encountering my neighbors on the street, and engaging in the richness of central city life that has nothing whatsoever to do with how wealthy you are. I'm also sparing the air from just a little bit of pollution, and the streets from traffic--not much, but the bit I have control over. The culture of the central city is also a powerful attraction--not just the trendy social scene, which personally I don't care for and don't participate in, but the energetic and interesting arts and music communities, community activism, museums and historic sites. And it is those communities that are becoming more kid-centric too: whether it's "Art Beast" kid-centered art lessons or concerts in the park with dedicated kid zones, or parent/child sleepovers at the Railroad Museum or the Auto Museum.

Yet see your comments here. Could you see how someone take this as showboating or infer you really do want other people to think of you as a hotshot for living downtown?

Originally Posted by wburg

I don't mind being stuck in the coolness trap. Midtown is very very very cool, so I don't plan on leaving even though I am neither gay nor single nor in my twenties.

Originally Posted by wburg

Meanwhile, suburbs, especially the fancy ones, are pretty notorious for people judging you by your car, how big your McMansion is, the designer label on your clothes or handbag. Or your kids--what brand-name stroller or car-seat carrier you got, what exclusive schools they got into, how they're doing at soccer or softball. People who use their kids as extensions of their own egos because they don't have a life beyond child-rearing. Some even judge people who don't have kids as inferior or irresponsible.

That's just as much of a shallow, frivolous lifestyle as anything you're trying to pin on me--but it takes place in the suburbs too. Because suburbs are so economically segregated, not fitting into the economic or social profile of your suburb can make one the subject of scorn and derision. I moved out of the suburbs because I was sick of that garbage, so don't even try to tell me it doesn't exist.

First the decision to have or not have kids is a personal decision between you and your wife. Generally the people who don't have kids have good reasons for not doing so.

Reread again what I wrote. I never said the coolness trap was exclusive to urban life nor that it didn't happen in suburbs nor that people with kids didn't engage in it. I said it was a function of disposable incomes. You are reading stuff into my statements that I never said nor claimed then just venting at me.

Originally Posted by Damnitjanet

The coolness trap is a function of disposable incomes. You need to have a certain amount of disposable income to engage in that type of frivolity. But for any given income level the people without kids have larger disposable incomes than the people with kids.

If as a couple you were making 50k before they had kids, one of them might have been able to accumulate a nice collection of musical equipment or really nice shoes or handbags, but when the kids come that's an expense they can no longer afford to sustain. Its tough to buy a new guitar or get a new purse for yourself if your kids need new braces.

If you make more money than 50k a year, you have more money to engage in this behavior, but kids suck up a lot of the resources spent on this stuff.

So most peoples experience with the coolness trap as a more pressing problem in the places without kids and generally your experience with it decreases when kids come into the picture. Couples just don't have the resources to spend on it as more kids come into the picture.

One of the reasons I see a virtue in economically segregated neighborhoods is because I think it dampens this behavior. The kid whose mom works at Walmart is going to have a lot less problems living next door to the kid whose mom works at Big 5 than he would if he was living next to a kid whose parents are both doctors. You said you had problems growing up in a suburb because you were poorer than the other kids in the neighborhood. Was the problem that it was economically segregated or that it wasn't sufficiently segregated by income? If everybody on your street made as much as your mom or dad did (whomever you lived with), would you have had less problems?

I didn't come from money. My mom died when I was young. My dad was a drunk. From an early age, I took care of myself. I have always needed to live below my means because I knew if I got in trouble, there was no one else to bail me out. Even today when I probably could afford to shop elsewhere, I do most of my shopping on the sale days at thrifttown buying the stuff that has been marked down.

When you are living below your means, you aren't trying to buy the biggest home in the best neighborhood, you can qualify for. You are trying to spend the least amount of money necessary. If you aren't trying to leverage yourself to the hilt to buy a home because you want to set aside a certain amount each month for savings and the people around you who bought into that neighborhood did, that means you are buying into neighborhoods surrounded by people who make less money than you do. It also dampens down the entire pressure for competitive consumption. This is another reason I really value economically segregated neighborhoods.

Its not just that people have different amounts of money, but people put different values on their money. Status seeking was never something I admired and mostly a luxury that I couldn't afford. I tend to view it primarily as an obstacle to saving money. If people think less of me because of where I shop or where I live, that has never been a thing I worried about. What has made my life genuinely better is overcoming financial instability. There was a lot of stress and chaos when I had bills and didn't know how I was going to pay them. I really hated that period. That will never happen again. I don't want my kids to face the types of decisions I had to face when I was going through that.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by Damnitjanet

Yet see your comments here. Could you see how someone take this as showboating or infer you really do want other people to think of you as a hotshot for living downtown?

What the reader infers is not necessarily what the speaker implies. Maybe we're just not agreeing on the meaning of "cool." I am inferring that you define "cool" as superficial, frivolous, status-seeking. I don't think those things are cool--by "cool" I mean things like community, history, beauty, enjoyability.

You said you had problems growing up in a suburb because you were poorer than the other kids in the neighborhood. Was the problem that it was economically segregated or that it wasn't sufficiently segregated by income? If everybody on your street made as much as your mom or dad did (whomever you lived with), would you have had less problems?

Actually, no, I wasn't poorer than the other kids. I grew up middle-class, in an exclusively middle-class neighborhood, and went to exclusively middle-class schools. I just couldn't stand the middle-class attitudes. It's not that my family couldn't afford the latest styles, it's just that I didn't give a damn about them. It wasn't limited to styles, either--it was the way people think and act, that was regimented, limited and distinctly unappealing. Sports, popular music, the apparent social requirement of having a car--all of that seemed like worthless nonsense to me. As a teen I took the bus downtown (in the 1980s) to get a taste of what life was like outside my suburban box. Even back then, I knew this was where I wanted to live.

Living in an economically and socially integrated neighborhood is more interesting because it gives different perspectives, and keeps me aware of how people out of my own socioeconomic bracket are living--not something I see on TV or read about, but how it affects the lives of my friends and neighbors, and thus my neighborhood. I can't just change the channel, so I am driven to change the world around me.

When you are living below your means, you aren't trying to buy the biggest home in the best neighborhood, you can qualify for. You are trying to spend the least amount of money necessary. If you aren't trying to leverage yourself to the hilt to buy a home because you want to set aside a certain amount each month for savings and the people around you who bought into that neighborhood did, that means you are buying into neighborhoods surrounded by people who make less money than you do. It also dampens down the entire pressure for competitive consumption. This is another reason I really value economically segregated neighborhoods.

I have been living below my means for many years--my dad gave me George S. Clason's "The Richest Man in Babylon" when I was 16 and I took the message to heart. I didn't leverage myself to the hilt to buy the biggest house in the neighborhood. Our first house was the smallest, cheapest house (730 sf, 1/1, .035 ac) in the best neighborhood we could afford, we went in with a 20% down payment so we didn't have to pay PMI, and even with a 15 year mortgage our payment was low enough that either my wife or I could make the full payment if the other's income dropped to zero. We saved money every month (separate from pre-tax retirement plans) and paid for home improvements in cash (no home equity loans for us!) that added to the home's value.

After five years, we used our equity to leverage ourselves into a slightly bigger (900sf, 2/1.5, .07 acre lot, still pretty modest by modern standards) house in a better neighborhood, using a traditional 30 year fixed-rate mortgage. It costs a bit more, but walking to work let us drop our gym memberships, and cut my already fairly modest gasoline and insurance bills in half. We hire contractors to do the hard stuff, but we do a lot of home improvement work and maintenance ourselves.

My friends who own homes in central city neighborhoods, including those with kids, use similar strategies: use conservative, careful economic strategies to reach a carefully planned goal, live below means, do things yourself. Some of my older friends started using the same strategies back in the 1970s, when Midtown was ridiculously cheap (and even more dangerous) and some have parlayed progressive home repair into comfortable levels of wealth--of the "economic security" sort, not the status sort, as most of them still drive cheap cars and don't look rich. (Read "The Millionaire Next Door" for how that works.) Most of them raised their kids here, too. A disabled friend on SSI parlayed a small inheritance into a "fixer" house, doing most of the work himself (with some help from his friends) to ensure that rising rents wouldn't leave him without a place to live.

Its not just that people have different amounts of money, but people put different values on their money. Status seeking was never something I admired and mostly a luxury that I couldn't afford. I tend to view it primarily as an obstacle to saving money. If people think less of me because of where I shop or where I live, that has never been a thing I worried about. What has made my life genuinely better is overcoming financial instability. There was a lot of stress and chaos when I had bills and didn't know how I was going to pay them. I really hated that period. That will never happen again. I don't want my kids to face the types of decisions I had to face when I was going through that.

DamnitJ, I think we have very similar fiscal outlooks, just different ways of applying them. I grew up middle-class but during and after college I made very little money (minimum wage or less) so I had to learn how to live cheaply; fortunately, having grown up not caring about designer status, I already knew how to shop cheap, how to cook, sew, fix things, and live frugally. I even taught a class for disabled adults on how to live frugally and make things from scratch!

We have no car payments. Our credit card balance is zero. We have no home equity loans. Our student loans are long since paid off. We pay in cash, and save for large purchases and emergencies. Our only debt is our house--but even in this market, we're not upside-down on it, because we used equity instead of risky borrowing.

My house is a fiscal investment that is also aesthetically pleasing and in a great neighborhood--but those two features are part of what helps it maintain its value. Buildings in historic preservation districts tend to be more insulated from economic shocks: they don't peak as high during land booms, but neither do they fall as far during downturns. They are a premium product not because of status-seekng value, but because of quality and rarity. Its purchase had nothing to do with desire for respect or social status; it is a financial vehicle that also gives me a great deal of personal pleasure and satisfaction. Although I must admit I get a little riled when people question the wisdom of what I consider to have been a very careful and very conservative investment--as well as a beautiful place to live.

[mysticaltyger]

DamnitJanit and Wburg, I really like both of your intelligent, well thought out, posts! I wish more posters were like both of you!

[hydro]

Are the suburb schools really all they are cracked up to be?

Kids can't play in the street anywhere, anymore, and truly be safe. Even in the suburbs.

The suburbs are soooo middle-upper middle class it is disturbing. Many of the kids in the suburbs think that they are so fancy and rolling in dough because their family has a luxury car and gym memberships that they can't truly afford. The designer clothes are really starting to bore me too, even though nice material feels good on the skin. The suburbs will also zap the creativity out of a potentially interesting person.

hmm.

Are the midtown schools really, really bad?

[x15]

On a price per sqft, midtown is much more expensive than Granite Bay or Davis, both of which have outstanding public schools.

Thus you could buy a 1500 sqft home in Granite Bay or Davis for less than it would cost you to buy that same 1500 sqft home in midtown and send your kids to some of the best public schools in the state.

Rancho Cordova is less than half as expensive on a per sqft basis as midtown, but the public schools in Rancho Cordova are better than midtown.

The public schools in midtown compare favorably with the public schools in Del Paso Heights, Oak Park and Meadowview. But those areas have some of the worst performing public schools in the state.

Its the combination of very high housing per sqft cost plus relatively poor public schools that means that midtown isn't a very good choice for families with children. This is the reason the neighborhood has so few families with kids.