America’s major cities are increasingly childless, an ongoing trend that was only exacerbated by the emergence of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In addition, spiking crime rates, increased cost of living and rising housing prices have pushed families out of U.S. metro areas, according to Manhattan Institute fellow Robert VerBruggen, who conducted a report that measured the family-friendliness of America's cities based on the data of 200 metro areas.
VerBruggen's research looked at which metro areas have the most children, where families with children choose to move and how metros area fare based on measures of well-being such as educational achievement, social mobility, social capital and child poverty. His research concluded that urban living can be made more appealing to families through increased educational choice and decreased cost of living.
"A pandemic, a crime wave, and a growing ability of knowledge workers to do their jobs without living in urban centers have only continued the decline of children’s presence in cities, especially dense inner cores," VerBruggen wrote.
