Digging deeper on natalism and urbanism

In a recent blog post at Planetizen, I criticized the idea that higher birth rates can only be achieved in car-dominated suburbia. In this post, I pointed out that a) not all walkable places have as little floor space as my Manhattan apartment, b) that some (admittedly unusual) urban places have pretty high birth rates, and c) suburbanization has not prevented nationwide birth rates from plummeting.

But that post was mostly about urban places, where families admittedly have less living space than I grew up with. And despite the exceptions I write about in my blog post, most affluent city neighborhoods tend to have fewer children than comparably wealthy suburbs.

What about new urbanist suburbs? Do they have fewer children than sprawl suburbs? The suburb I have the most data on is Celebration, Florida, which is large enough to be its own census-designated place. 18.4 percent of Celebration residents are elementary and middle-school age (between ages 5-14). How does that compare to more conventional Orlando suburbs? The Orlando suburb I know most about, Maitland, seems to have fewer children: the Census estimates that just over 10 percent of its residents are in the 5-14 age group. In Windermere, one of Orlando’s richest suburbs, just over 11 percent of residents are in this group. So Celebration seems to be more child-friendly than comparable suburbs.

What about “old urbanist” suburbs that are similar to new urbanist suburbs- small, highly walkable places? East Aurora, New York is a Buffalo suburb with an attactive main street and a Walkscore of 81. 12.1 percent of its residents are ages 5-14. By contrast, one of Buffalo’s richest suburbs, Clarence, is far less walkable, and only 8 percent of its residents are that age. (On the other hand, in Clarence Center a bit further out, 14 percent of residents are age 5-14).

All of this is subject to a few caveats: first, Census estimates are subject to a significant margin of error, so I am not sure any of these differences are statistically significant. Furthermore, this is obviously not a comprehensive survey of American suburbia. But these examples do suggest that walkable suburbs have as many children as more typical suburbs.