U.S. Census Bureau analysis shows cities are becoming less welcoming to families with children

A new analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau finds that the number of young children in America’s largest cities is “declining rapidly” at an alarming rate.

Researcher Connor O’Brien of the Economic Innovation Group reported that the number of children born to age 4 fell by 18% in New York City, 15% in Cook County, Illinois (Chicago), and 14% in Los Angeles County from 2020 to 2023. The number of children under age 5 is also falling by double digits in the counties that make up most or all of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and St. Louis. Several of America’s largest cities are on track to lose 50% of their 0-4 populations in the next 20 years. According to The Atlantic, even progressives are worried.

For comparison, the Washington Stand reported that the 0-4 population fell 2.3% from 2020 to 2021, 1% from 2021 to 2022, and 0.8% from 2022 to 2023 — an overall three-year decline of 4.1%. But in large metropolitan areas, that age group fell 3.9% from 2020-2021, 2.2% from 2021-2022, and 1.5% from 2022-2023 — a three-year decline of 7.6%. The only area where the 0-4 population grew (by 2%) was exurban counties — areas just outside the suburbs that are considered semi-rural.

“Progressives do have a family problem,” admitted The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson. “The steady rise of the childless city is … the result of urban policy, conceived, written and executed by liberals(emphasis added).

O’Brien told Thompson: “I’m very concerned about a family exodus doom loop. If the population of young children in a city drops by 10 to 20 percent in just a few years, that’s a potential political earthquake. Almost overnight, there are fewer parents to fight for better schools, local playgrounds or all the other everyday amenities that families care about.”

It appears that families are moving out of large urban centers, Joshua Arnold reported for the Washington Stand, contributing to the decline in the city’s 0-4-year-old population. He explained, “Big cities are implementing policies that are causing families to leave.”

Fewer criminal arrests and less police support

Arnold cites two “major concerns” for families with young children: safety and affordability. Over the past decade, progressive cities have changed the way they prosecute crimes “in the name of equality” and have failed to support police forces that now refuse to arrest criminals because they know the district attorney will drop the charges. This has led to an increase, the Washington Stand reports, in open-air drug markets, shoplifting and riots in these cities.

“A particularly lax approach to sentencing minors encouraged the formation of gangs of minors who carried out organized burglaries and armed carjackings. This deliberate policy choice by local, progressive prosecutors caused violent crime to skyrocket, making the city less safe for families,” Arnold wrote. “Mothers with strollers don’t appreciate homeless camps on the sidewalk, drug sales on the playground, and organized burglaries at the corner store.”

Higher housing costs

Moreover, these cities have pushed policies that raise costs for families, Arnold argues. From high taxes to expensive permitting processes for building homes, cities have become too expensive for families. “Since every worker has to pay for housing, an expensive housing market drives up wages, which drives up the cost of almost everything — from McDonald’s to gas prices to (especially) child care,” Arnold noted.

Discouraging the creation of families

Arnold adds another reason for the decline: progressive cities discourage family formation. He notes that there has been a “revolutionary philosophical shift in the postmodern world in which people define their identity in relation to themselves, rather than outwardly directed relationships.”

Modern Americans are more focused on their feelings and “expressive individualism.” Instead of striving to start a family, young adults are focused on careers, travel, and hobbies, and mistakenly view children as an obstacle to those goals.

READ: TERRIBLE: UK cap on two-child benefit puts pressure on women to choose abortion

Laws against family zoning

There’s another factor to consider, though. CityLab has uncovered a disturbing new trend: In cities, local politicians are using zoning laws to prevent families with children from moving in, and it’s disproportionately affecting millennials and minorities. In 2019, Nolan Gray, an urban planning researcher, and Lyman Stone, an economist, detailed several ways city planning officials are essentially creating what they call “vasectomy zoning” by implementing policies that encourage people to stop having children.

In Philadelphia, the City Planning Commission proposed a zoning change that would effectively ban new daycare centers, tire shops, and auto repair shops in northwest Philadelphia. Garwood, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City, adopted a plan that included an outright ban on homes with three or more bedrooms. Likewise, the city of Nutley, New Jersey, banned three-bedroom homes.

“(M)unicipalities are increasingly meeting their state-mandated affordable housing requirements by building only senior housing,” Gray and Stone wrote. “Proposals for affordable housing with three-bedroom apartments are rejected out of hand, leaving working families with few options.”

CityLab even wrote:

(Rising) housing prices are increasingly preventing women from having children. While jokes about avocado toast would have you believe that millennials can afford a house if they change their wasteful lifestyles, the reality seems to be the opposite: High housing prices are likely forcing many young couples to make difficult lifestyle changes, such as postponing having children.

In a recent study for the Institute for Family Studies, Lyman found that faster rent increases are associated with lower fertility among women in their 20s and 30s, when most young couples would normally be starting families.. The net effect of high housing costs is that more women are delaying having children until well beyond their peak childbearing years, or are simply not having the children they say they want.

The Impact on Black and Hispanic Families

Hispanic and black women now have higher fertility rates than white women, meaning these progressive policies are effectively blocking women’s job opportunities. minority families communities and deny them access to child care. As Live Action News previously reported, when these minority families, who disproportionately face poverty, are excluded from communities with family-friendly services and affordable housing, they are more likely to seek abortion. The abortion industry exploits and abuses minority women.

In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that while abortion rates among white women taken away from 2020 to 2021 it is increased with nearly six percent (5.86%) among Black women (39.2% in 2020 vs. 41.5% in 2021) and more than three percent (3.3%) among Hispanic women (21.7% in 2020 vs. 21.8% in 2021).

An undercover investigation by Live Action revealed that Planned Parenthood was willing to accept donations intended for abortions of black babies and allegedly pressured black women to get sterilized.

These are methods of population control. Progressive policies that discourage family formation are simply additional ways to control minority populations.. Stone and Gray’s analysis shows that many people who do not have children do so primarily because they feel they have no other choice.

Perhaps women do not happily undergo abortions to exercise their “choice,” but rather turn to abortion because they believe they have a “choice.” No choice — and city leaders are reinforcing that false belief. The latest analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data showing the rapid decline in children ages 0-4 in U.S. cities is evidence that progressive policies are destroying American families.

The DOJ has jailed a pro-life grandmother for protesting the killing of unborn children. Please take 30 seconds to TELL CONGRESS: STOP THE DOJ FROM TARGETING PRO-LIFE AMERICANS.