Businessweek: best places to raise kids - Cranberry

[Geeo]

There are millions of places like Cranberry and they're all interchangeable. I grew up in an area like this and made my escape after high school. It was the era before "play dates" (where the parent consults with another parent to schedule a pre-determined time to drive their kid somewhere to play), so we were able to take our bikes and get around, but the accident rate of kids getting hit was high because there were no shoulders onthe roads. But it was kind of numbing - there was no place to hang out other than McDonalds or another local fast food joint. I never knew anyone who was not white and upper middle class until I got to college. We knew we were insulated in what we called our "cotton candy land." I don't know that this environment can produce people who are aware of things outside their bubble. We weren't able to access museums other than a school field trip, and it was kind of a socail-climbing environment for the parents. Of course there were drugs, but the township police would keep things quiet when it was kids of prominent parents. It seemed that any bad publicity was a threat to property values.

Great place to raise kids? Maybe for the competitive parenting set who score everything to make sure that their kids have what they perceive to be the "very best."

[Mugatu]

Originally Posted by Garvdog

There are a million places like Cranberry all over the country, near every major city. I think the reason why Pittsburghers have such disdain for Cranberry is because such "master plan" upper middle class sprawling neighborhoods are not common here. The lack of growth and topography of much of Pittsburgh has prevented this. If this area begins growing again, prepare for more neighborhoods like this.

Exactly. I grew up in Florida, that whole state is a giant suburb, but no one complains about it there since they don't really know any better. I never even realized suburbs vs city was such a volatile subject until I moved here and started browsing this forum. When looking for places to live here, it never even crossed my mind to be concerned whether my residence would be within the city limits or not. I just looked for a place I felt was nice and was a reasonable commute to my job.

But the one thing I don't understand is the total lack of sidewalks in the suburbs here. In Florida, I'd say at least 90% of all the roads have sidewalks. While most areas down there aren't built with walkability in mind, you CAN actually walk places without having to walk in the middle of the freaking street like you have to do here. I see that Cranberry is trying to fix that issue, but most other suburbs in this area are a death trap if you try to walk anywhere.

[Stijl Council]

Originally Posted by Geeo

But it was kind of numbing - there was no place to hang out other than McDonalds or another local fast food joint....Great place to raise kids? Maybe for the competitive parenting set who score everything to make sure that their kids have what they perceive to be the "very best."

Agreed 1000%. During middle school my family moved to an area that was very much like Cranberry with better schools (my high school had some fairly major national recognition around the time I was there, and their recent average SAT scores are higher than any public school in western PA, with virtually all students taking the test).

There were definitely some positives. I feel like I got as good a secondary education as you're going to get anywhere in many ways -- for the most part college felt easy compared to my most demanding high school classes. And I had the opportunity to compete nationally in some academic competitions, because in virtually any academic or arts thing this school took seriously they were at least good and often elite.

That said, barring actual threats to physical safety it's hard for me to imagine a worse environment psychologically (the middle school I went to before this district fit into the "actual threats to physical safety" category and I've worked in both urban and suburban schools -- I'm no expert but I'm also not just talking out my *** here). You couldn't get anywhere without a car and there really wasn't anything to do in the immediate area except for shopping, so everything revolved around the school. There was some racial diversity but almost no economic diversity, and pressure to conform was ridiculously high -- much higher than people from more diverse schools seemed to experience.

I left there feeling very strongly that if I ever had kids of my own, living in an actual city was non-negotiable. And that's exactly what I did.

[SorryIMovedBack]

Originally Posted by jay5835

I don't know about a sanctuary, per se, but one year, I had so many squirrels in the attic, I had to call an exterminator (who did not exterminate them, btw, just caged them, then sent them to live in Scott Township, or so he told me). I frequently had squirrels in my yard and on my steps, in all kinds of weather. It really was a hill of squirrels.

That description paints quite the picture!

[SorryIMovedBack]

Originally Posted by Goinback2011

You can claim otherwise, but parents flee the city for schools and activities for their children in the suburbs. The data of the last 50 years speak for themselves.

I grew up in Dormont in a time when children were 'supervised' by an army of mothers who were home most of the day. Once that ended, the security of children ended and the desirability of urban neighborhoods declined.
...

I'd vote that most flee for control.

There are a lot of sociological factors that contributed to flight to the suburbs. The Great Depression and WWII shortages of everything combined with a postwar prosperity made people want to cast off the old, and get new-style homes and cars and furnishings. Lots of people in this quadrant of PA were immigrants who moved into someone else's old house, and when they got money, the wanted to build their own homes. (I love old homes, so I never was enthralled with the build-a-dream-home idea, anyway.)

The riots and drugs and racial problems of the '60s are what put the nail in the coffin of old cities. The upper and upper middle class whites fled to the countryside. Flee to "country" homes with acreage out in the suburbs was what parents here did to control access to activities and playmates, and keep their kids from getting around as easily as they could in the cities. Lack of mass transit to suburbs impeded the criminal element in town

I grew up rural, but my parents always lived in town when they were kids. Not only were there "second moms" back then, but elderly and retirees that were home all day. Before air conditioning, people had their windows open and sat out on porches and lawns in summer, too, all of which made it considerably more likely for any odd goings-on to be noticed and stopped or reported. Their were probably a few more foot patrolmen, too.