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Where'd all the children go?
By adamg on Thu, 03/19/2015 - 2:41pm
CommonWealth Magazine ponders a Boston with a continuing decline in the pre-18 set.
Boston is becoming not only a city without young people to shovel snow for those of us with arthritic hands and bad backs, but also a city which has a strikingly reduced number of young people participating in Little League, youth hockey, scout groups, and all of those other bedrock institutions that cement neighborhoods and create a sense of community.
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Comments
No Sleep Til Brookline
While conversely Brookline is starting to have a school overcrowding issue.
I guess now we know where everyone is going.
Brookline would be smart to not overbuild the schools
because many, like me, are taking our kids and leaving because it is just not possible to find "affordable" housing (even with two reasonably well remunerated parents) that can accommodate two kids without everyone being on top of one another and tripping over everything. They are looking at the birth numbers - that's not a good statistic for reasons of people like me. Their presumption of how many babies born to Brookline addresses that will stay in Brookline is way too high.
We tried desperately to stay, but the only "affordable" housing units in the size we wanted (not huge, ~2100-2400 sq ft) were in south Brookline. For those not familiar with that area, it has none of the benefits of Brookline that everyone usually touts (walkability to places like Washington Sq./Coolidge Corner, transit links into town, etc.). It is basically an extension of West Roxbury (the low-walkability parts) but you get to pay 33-50% more for your property than just over the line in Westie (that's a steep increase in price just for schools, which are really the only difference). Lovely homes, but not much else going for it.
As a result, we are headed for a great neighborhood in relatively near western suburb not to be named (it inspires particular vitriol on UHub) with exceptional walkability to everything that we need. The car does not have to be moved except to commute (which was happening on Brookline, anyway because that job is in the suburbs away from transit of any kind).
We're very sorry to be leaving, but that's baseball and the reality of the marketplace.
Sorry not sorry
This topic will keep coming up and there will never be consensus.
PS. I grew up in a family of 7 in 1,200-square feet single-family (that includes the two bedrooms in the basement; my sister next to the oil tank).
(My comment doesn't negate your point, so I'm sorry to bring it up. Just had to vent.)
Everyone's needs are different
If you feel that you have to have a family room, or need a home office for someone working at home a lot ... or a extra space for a catering business, etc. you might want more space.
But, yes, some of this is all in how you grew up and are used to. My husband spent his first seven years sharing 750 sq feet with four other people, and I lived to age 17 sharing about 650 sq feet with three other people.
Our current home for four people is around those two areas, added together, and it feels like a freaking palace to me! We have been just fine with it (a little squeezed with the teens taking the largest bedrooms, but okay). Nothing as nuts as we grew up with, though.
Even tighter squeeze than my family growing up
Six people in 1300 sq. feet -- which seemed huge compared to our prior house (albeit only 4 family members in that house).
I grew up
in a shoebox in the middle of the road.
Shoebox
So you grew up in a space saver?
And it's no wonder you're Cranky
.
We grew up in a barn.
We grew up in a barn.
So when we left the barn door open my father would yell, "do you live in a barn?" We"d all get a kick out of that.
Luxury!
Luxury!
We have a winner!
We have a winner!
In Yorkshire?
In Yorkshire?
Isaac, Brookline has no choice.
The schools they have built are already overfilled, and future projections don't seem to ascribe to your theory.
About those projections
that's what I'm saying - I don't think that their projections are going to turn out to be correct. It's not like there is a tremendous amount of building going on in Brookline. Town Officials themselves consider the town "built out".
I have experience with this. Where I went to school (out of state), a similar thing happened. School usage was built on flimsy projections, and the town got burned big time when the projections didn't pan out.
I was merely making the point that these projections are notoriously difficult to make, and I think that the major flaw in Brookline's is that their estimated percentage of people who are going to stay in Brookline is way too high for the reasons stated elsewhere. Look, I love the town, and I think that it is very well run, but I think that they might be off on this particular issue.
Well you said they were looking at the birth numbers....
When they can just look at their current enrollment numbers. 600+ students in the k-3 levels compared to 400+ in the HS.
Re: near western suburb not to be named
Does it rhyme with "Snoo-tin" or perhaps "Congestion"?
Perhaps "otter clown"
Or, maybe, SmellFont?
I can tell from his post he'd
I can tell from his post he'd never "stoop" to live in Watertown.
Stoop this.
Without further acknowledgement of a post that adds nothing to the discussion, I will say only this: a very close friend who was raised in Watertown, went to Watertown public schools, and has lived in Watertown for his entire life (as have many, many members of his family since they immigrated to the US) is decamping for Belmont specifically because he does not have confidence in the Watertown school system.
Yea Watertown is far from an elite school system....
Nice town, but closer to middle class than somewhere like Belmont or Newton.
Watertown has smart and famous celebs!
Hey, if Watertown was good enough for Eliza Dusku, it is good enough for you!
No surprise that she spent time at Beaver...now there's some place I'd like to matriculate
2100-2400 sq ft isn't huge?
2100-2400 sq ft isn't huge? Ummm, ok.
Our medium-sized house near Atlanta....
... was at least 3000 sq feet, plus around 1500 very useable sq feet in a lovely semi-finished basement. We had a major space readjustment to make when moving to Boston.
(medium-sized by Atlanta standards == mansion-esque here).
Yea but he was talking about Brookline....
Where 2,000 sq feet is probably small for a brookline home, but probably about 1,000,000 bucks too.
Well over a million. WELL over a million
Except in south Brookline, which as I said, is not, in my opinion, worth that kind of money.
And thanks for pointing out something that anyone who knows anything about Brookline, or has even passed through a few times, should know.
And thanks to you, too.
for pointing out something that the poster above you should have had the sense to know.
I know Brookline well.
And there aren't many regular sized homes in "North Brookline". Mostly older large homes that have been converted into multi unit dwellings. But south brookine is pretty much like every other surburban town around Boston, but if you lived in Brookline, you might seem it is far away from the "action" but is still probably closer than most surburban towns.
They always want people out
If Brookline could legally ban non-owners (renters) from attending the public school or somehow create a separate public school system for renters they would. No deed, no diploma.
This is nothing new, mind you.
Um. No.
I grew up and went to school in Brookline and while yes, my family owns a house, many of my friends were apartment dwellers.
But hey, nice try.
If they could...
Obviously they can't block non-owners but their policies make it seem as if they wish they could.
I lived in Brookline for many years and a good majority of my friends went to BHS. I used to go to selectmen meetings only to have people tell me to my face that I shouldn't be there and I don't really care about the town since I didn't own. It was insulting and frustrating to be considered a sub-citizen by the town as I wasn't middle-aged, driveway owning, tie wearing professional.
The "Allston Invasion" was phrase often overheard at civic events.
Well, that explains
why there's cement pylons and a garden in the middle of Walbridge Road at the Brookline line.
I lived a block up from it, and I was fairly certain it was to keep the yucky Allstonians out, but now I know for sure.
As long as
some Brookline residents can park their cars over in Allston.
Brookliners parking in A/B?
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single area in A/B that borders Brookline where the streets are not Resident Permit Parking only and I presume that is the reason (also to discourage BC and BU kids from bringing cars). Are there any?
Plenty
Most of the streets that border Brookline are unrestricted parking. It's a real head-scratcher, since residents like to whine about parking, but don't seem to want to do anything that might help.
Brainerd Road is infamous as a repository of Brookline cars. And most blocks of Comm Ave are unrestricted as well.
Newsflash....
Renters in Allston and Dorchester often get the same treatment. If you don't own, you really don't have a stake in your community that owners might have. Not all the time, but a lot of the time.
Owning property isn't community involvement
Plenty of people who rent have energy to give to their community, and eventually will buy if not treated like shit for being involved in making their place a better place.
Many owners just sit there and let their properties run into the ground in absentia, never vote, never get involved.
Time to change the paradigm.
True Swirrly......
But I think for the most part, owners have more of a long term stake, for many reasons, in their property and the town in which they live/own in.
Sure, there are deadbeat landlords and property owners, and property owners who can no longer afford to keep up their properties, but I think for the most part, owners have more of a stake in their community than renters. They shouldn't be treated differently in terms of city services, but more often than not owners have more of a stake.
Shit, they don't even want
Shit, they don't even want you parking on the streets at night :)
Psst. I know the answer.
Don't tell anyone this but it might have something to do with schools, high housing costs, and crime.
This is just anecdotal, but the some of the best collection of two and three year old South End resident parking stickers can be found in the Hingham Ferry Parking Lot on weekdays and at the Cohasset Soccer Complex on weekends.
Not everyone can leave but I would have been a bad parent if I had to pay idiotic housing costs to have me be unable to find parking, avoid gunshots, and have some great but an above average amount of mediocre schools for my kids.
Sorry. I love the city. It is great in the years after college, great to work and play in, and great to empty nest in, but to give your children, with the exception of some great neighborhoods, a life here, isn't Elysium.
Schools, mostly
I don't even think it is the quality of schools so much as the complete hassle of not knowing where your kids will go to school, and not having schools near where most of the kids are.
Many communities are finding ways to discourage families from locating in their areas, such as approving only small units in apartment buildings. Boston seems to put their own special spin on that with their school closing patterns in the last couple of decades.
Ding, ding, ding!
As have said many times on this site, regardless of how people feel about life in the city or life in the suburbs, the vast majority of people are not lottery players when it comes to their kids' education. It is not that the quality of Boston schools is universally terrible, it is just the uncertainty surrounding which school a kid will end up in that is unappealing to so many.
As for the poster above who mentioned the South End stickers in Hingham, I see the same thing on a westward extending axis: Brookline, Newton, Wellesley, Needham. Go to an open house in any of these communities and you are bound to see at least half of the vehicles with South End or South Boston stickers.
I also agree with the other poster who noted the "one-kid-and-then-out" phenomenon. It is just too expensive and inconvenient (parking/schlepping/etc.) to live in the denser part of the city when there is more than one child.
Neighbors and Co-Workers
This is just anecdotal but several of my neighbors and co-workers have kids in Boston Public Schools....which shocked me at first but they tell me there is a new assignment policy that improved the predictability in what school a kid goes to and they keep telling me the #1 ranked public middle school and high school is in Boston (Boston Latin School).
Yes, but
Can't get in in 7th or 9th Grade at Latin? Too bad, welcome to the Academy of theRing of Fire, Animal Husbandry, and Auto Detailing.
I hear getting into Latin isn
I hear getting into Latin isn't really that hard but if it is just move to the burbs at that point.
By the time 7th grade rolls around, the price of your house/condo will probably have increased much more than a home in the burbs.
Where'd you hear it's not that hard?
Just curious.
I tested in to BLS & BLA
But decided not to go because of athletics. The test really wasn't that hard and im dyslexic and ADD to boot.
New assignment?
wasn't there a new assignment format to get more kids into schools close to their homes and less busing?
Totally, Completely Agree
I'm a committed city dweller here, but I don't have kids. I know that if I DID have kids, we would be in the suburbs so very fast. I compare the education my niece and nephew are getting with the education that my city friends' kids are getting: I really think that you can get a good education in BPS, but it seems like you have to fight, fight, fight for it non-stop. Meanwhile, my niece and nephew just go to school. There was no lottery, no rounds and rounds of visits. My sister & brother-in-law just registered them for kindergarten at the school where all the neighborhood kids were also attending. That was that.
I also don't know if I would have the stamina to put my kids' chances into a lottery. Yes, undoubtedly, there are benefits to raising kids in an urban setting, and for those of you who are doing it/have done it: kudos. I just don't think that person would be me.
Once upon a time
Boston was like that, we even had a competitive athletic program. Now we have bickering and buses.
I third or fourth or fifth...
As someone who went through the whole lottery thing several times and managed to keep my kid in BPS all the way through , I still look back with dread at those years of anxiety and uncertainty--you just felt as if you had no control at all. And we were in a relatively GOOD position--pretty experienced, informed. I always wondered how on earth anyone new to the city or the US would navigate the system. I can't blame people for getting the hell out of dodge.
Schools are ok
In my experience, the schools are OK but then I'm 95% sure my kid will test into an exam school which is very different than having to face your kid getting sent to Boston English or the like.
My biggest complaint is the lack of neighborhood. My kid has gone to several schools and he's never had a classmate in walking distance to him (in 'downtown' Roslindale). The world of walk down the street to play with your friend doesn't exist in my experience, even though there's tons of density. Could just be our bad luck, IDK.
This is exactly it
We moved to Brookline from New Hampshire a couple of years ago. Our initial plan was to live in Boston proper, but with two elementary schoolers, the uncertainty around which school they'd attend was the dealbreaker. Lotteries? Entry years? Testing in? I kept hearing about kids getting on a bus at 6:30 to go all the way across town. No thanks.
My wife is living proof that a good education can be had at even the worst schools, but for young kids in a new city it's hard to create a sense of community when home and school are so separate. Here, our kids walk to and from school and see neighborhood friends along the way. Their school friends all live within walking distance, so when they want to play after school or on the weekend, it's simple to arrange. The friends they make at the nearby park are in their classroom and vice versa. It's easier as a parent, too. I'm able to volunteer at their school and chaperone field trips without a hassle because it's easily accessible.
I really can't imagine Boston ever attracting a lot of new young families with the school system set up the way it is. Brookline definitely makes things obnoxious sometimes; the process for verifying residency is odious and unnecessarily complicated, but the way the schools are bursting at the seams indicates that it's worth it for a lot of families.
We have similarly obnoxious
We have similarly obnoxious forms to prove residency for Milton schools. I think it's more paperwork than when I bought and mortgaged my house. We also have the same South Boston and South End stickers (and some JP) and schools bursting at the seams with the kids of former city dwellers.
My wife grew up in Dorchester and went to parochial school, then Latin. It was definitely the uncertainty about schools that made us leave South Boston. Kudos to those who navigate BPS and make it work. We weren't so brave and with 4 kids, private wouldn't be very fun (or feasible) financially as a last resort.
Nobody can afford to live here.
We are becoming San Francisco of the East Coast.
Singles and couples with maybe one child.
That one child gets all the resources. They want the best for the kid, and Boston public schools are not it.
That isn't just a Boston issue
That is a Boston area issue. House prices in the suburbs are quite high as well, and higher for certain types of housing.
If I put my house in Medford on the market tomorrow, it would list at about three times what it cost me in 1998. Medford is relatively affordable within the I95/128 area, with similar prices as West Roxbury. Anything with a relatively short commute to where the jobs are is going to be pricy.
I agree with you.
Its not just San Francisco. Its the entire bay area.
The same thing is happening here. Just about everything inside 128 is unaffordable for most.
Smart move to Medford BTW.
Can't upvote this enough. A
Can't upvote this enough. A condo in our community just sold and saw about a 35% increase in price in the last 4 years. There was a deadline for the offers (I'm guessing that's a new RE tactic) and people came to see it in crowds. Mind you, it's just a condo that has no land ownership and it sold for what single-family housing was going 5 years ago. A coworker keeps getting real-estate letters urging him to sell, and he says the appraisal for his place has skyrocketed too. Who is able to afford all these prices?
35% seems high for the last 4 years (without rehab)
What neighborhood?
San Francisco
Has a similar school assignment policy, as well. But San Francisco has markedly higher crime and a far larger problem with gang violence than Boston, so people have way more to lose if the lottery doesn't work for them.
The thing about San Fran (and
The thing about San Fran (and I really do love visiting there) is as of 2010, there were still more dogs than children in the city. Several of the schools we saw had no land, and had a basketball / mini field built on top of the school. Most of the free land is either too expensive due to it being in a new hipster neighborhood (eg the Mission) and the white people are still too afraid to move deep into Oakland despite its rising prices.
Just because a place has a few food trucks and an Ikea does not mean it is a place I want to raise my kids.
It's too crowded...
Nobody lives there any more.
Look at the new housing
Lots of new housing being built in Boston. Lots of apartments. Lots of small units.
Condos? Not so much.
3 or more BRs? Nope.
Zoning.
Most towns and cities want tax revenue, but they don't want kids in the schools. In the city, this gets you apartments that are sized for single people or young couples, but not for families. In the 'burbs, it gets you snob zoning with multi-acre minimum lot sizes.
Allston Civic Association
Allston Civic Association came out against New Balance's plan to build 3BR apartments on the Allston/Brighton border in 2003, claiming only students would live in them. We can't have it both ways in arguing about housing mix.
I know many people who have moved from Allston to Brookline with kids, not into massive places, but into 1BR rentals. It ain't the housing mix. It is the investment in parks and playgrounds.
(No subject)
I don't understand
Is it more expensive to live in Boston neighborhoods such as West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Hyde Park than to live in Waltham, Melrose, Peabody, Middleton, Quincy, and other nearby towns and cities?
Why do people look at Beacon Hill and think that's "Boston"?
It's all about the same
I think it's probably similarly priced to live in any of the areas you mentioned. The real deal-breaker though is the schools. Boston's (mostly) stink and so if you live in Boston with kids, a ton of people then have to pay for private school. Fix the schools and suddenly Boston is even more awesome.
Please Define "stink"
My daughter had a great experience in a small West Zone K1-5 school with a fantastic principal and involved parents (not one of the in-demand schools at the time), then moved on to a truly inspiring AWC teacher for grades 4 and 5 followed by a year at a much larger middle school where she embraced the "stimulation" of an all-city, turn-around school while still learning from some first rate teachers. She's now at a BPS exam school and thriving. None of this was guaranteed. With footwork and research we had a sense of what would be a good fit and, fortunately enough, many of our choices were realistic "hidden gems" within the BPS. I know many people have genuinely Kafkaesque stories about navigating BPS but I grew up in one of those suburbs that people aspire to move up to and I can honestly say that my child has already received an education far superior to what I experienced in the 'burbs. It may just come down to her being a smarter kid than I was but I think people dismiss what the Boston Public Schools have to offer too easily and at their peril.
I agree with you
in many ways and I don't regret at all the decision to stay in the city--it sounds as if our kids followed similar paths, school wise. But still...I feel as if we just barely skated through and we have lots of stories that seem hilarious now but at the time were harrowing.
The biggest problem in many ways was the aforementioned loss of neighborhood connection. The price we paid for getting to some good schools, with a mix of kids from different areas, was that until seventh grade, there was little to no overlap between home and school friends and activities. The schools that I've observed that are really successful have been the ones where neighborhood parents got really involved, in part because they lived right nearby. And I know that a school in the South End is going to have more parents who will raise money for a soccer field than a school in Fields Corner, and yet in spite of that I've come to feel that this is the way to go, to promote a sense of ownership and connection and pride. And maybe more importantly to give those parents who are on the fence more of a reason to stay.
Bingo
My assumption is that only in 7th grade, if/when my kid tests into BLS, then there will be an overlap between kids from neighborhood, sports, camps, school, etc...
The key think in all this thread though is that Stephanie and you and me are all dealing with AWC kids. I have friends who have non-AWC kids and that is a much, much tougher path.
Absolutely true.
Choosing between BLS or BLA and Lexington HS is one thing;choosing between English or Madison Park and Lexington--or Randolph or Milton or Quincy-- is a different story.
But yes, seventh grade at BLS was where all the rivers run together. It was great, frankly.
Similar Story
We have a similar story. The one thing that really helped is that our first child got into a good school for K2 and our next two kids were able to follow him due to sibling preference. Then on to AWC in 4th and 5th grade. The main problem we had with the schools is the middle school decision. If you expect your kid to place into an exam school for 7th (which ours did), you have to deal with a lot of uncertainty about 6th grade. Plus you are looking at lots of school changes (K-3 in one, 4-5 in another, 6th, then 7th + if you get into exam school or 6-8 and then 9+). If you have more than one kid that pretty much means you will have kids in multiple schools which could be all over the city for many years. The best thing they are doing right now is extending the elementary schools from K-5 to K-8. That resolves a lot of uncertainty.
living in
West Roxbury, Roslindale will cost you around 400-500 for a house that cost only a fraction of that 20 years ago. Forutnately for me I was able to attend one of the best middle schools in WR,while transitioning right to an exam school afterwoods. Like many of the posters above have stated, unless youre kids are guaranteed a spot at one of the neighborhood schools, it's easier just to move out to a district with an overall better school system.
More Room, More Control
John, Mission Hill three deckers are now selling for $500,000 a unit. There was a price increase in one day for my buddy's South End condo that was nearly half the cost of my starter house.
I did my three decker indentured servitude, now I could barely afford one. Extra living area is worth the commute despite the headaches.
The kids are in the 'burbs.
School enrollment in the Lexington Public School system has been growing at an average rate of 2% for the last 5 years. The growth is mostly from people moving their families into apartment units.
I am Bostnkid
I grew up in a neighborhood where I knew every family in every house. we all went to Catholic schools, mostly poor Catholic schools.I saw some crazy/scary stuff in kindergarten in Boston public schools (the 70s) and was quickly moved to Catholic school. as I got older I saw the families in my neighborhood move away slowly but surely. I watched friends get married and high tail it for the suburban school systems. the poor catholic schools started dying off and the few remaining catholic schools were/are expensive. for many it became a decision of whether they could afford to stay in the city, avoid the public schools ( because they still suck 40 years later) and afford CM or BC high. so, the neighborhood I grew up in splintered into lots and lots of 20-30-40 somethings with no kids. that's what I saw.
Poor vs. expensive Catholic schools
During that time period, there was a huge drop in the number of women signing up to become nuns. Nuns were essentially unpaid for teaching school, and when they disappeared, Catholic schools had to start hiring paid staff to cover their classes, which caused the tuition to go up.
No, I had "lay" teachers back
No, I had "lay" teachers back in 1965!!
Nun's are paid, btw although they are not treated as well as they should be.
Call it what you want
But if youre white and your kid doesnt get into bls/bla then its off to bc high or cm
If you're
a boy. Parallel path for girls at various suburban catholic schools.
Don't forget Mount and FBA!
Don't forget Mount, FBA and Archies!
On the plus side. . .
Less annoying kids and pesky teenagers on the T! I'd chalk that up as a whim.
Fewer, not less
Unless you really mean that the same number of kids are less annoying. And win not whim. Come on--if you're going to slag off school kids at least sharpen up your posts.
Well, there's
no shortage of kids in Roslindale. Teenagers on my street (including my own), littler ones in elementary school and preschool, as well as babies. Where they go to school varies widely by household -- various public schools, charter schools, private schools. I do feel that if we had a better and more unified school system, we would know our neighbors and our neighbors' kids better.
You know what? I don't buy
You know what? I don't buy that it's the schools. We lived in Boston (Dorchester) for ten years after we had kids. We didn't leave because of schools. We left because neighbors were awful to each other and to us (treated us like second class citizens because we didn't grow up on the street), because we couldn't find a freaking parking spot for weeks after a snowstorm, because our kids couldn't sleep at night during the summer because d-bags shot off fireworks at all hours of the night constantly, etc etc. We actually loved our school options and miss them most of all. Our friends who stayed in the neighborhood have had wonderful experiences in BPS and I am envious. There's been plenty of scholarly work (totally ignored by the Commonwealth authors) showing that the decline of schoolkids in Boston mirrors the decline of numbers of white children in general in the U.S. because of demographics, not solely because of white flight. Though I'm with Ben, above--mobility into Boston proper is totally hampered by the lottery system.
But why then?
I mean--it sounds as if your problems could have been solved by moving five blocks away. Trust me--you can have shitty neighbors anywhere. Everyone I know who left the city did it because of schools and space constraints/affordability.
We shall see
We live in Hyde park and have a 1 year old....9 houses from the milton line......hoping she gets into the local school that we've heard is good. If she doesn't we might have to move to milton....sucks that we are going to have have to wait and enter a lottery to find out ; (
My experience
as a resident of Boston since 1997 and a mother of a 3rd grader in BPS I just want to say that our little league teams are full and prosperous, our public school is oversubscribed and out experience of raising a family in Boston has been positive. We have an abundant amount of friends with children in this city.
Maybe that will change, but for now it works for us and we are lucky we bought so early that our mortgage is reasonable. I hate when I hear how everyone leaves because the schools are bad. Our experience with BPS (after the stress over the lottery) has been so positive. I know I am not alone with this sentiment. But I also don't question the families that move to avoid the uncertainties.
Schools are what the parents
Schools are what the parents and kids make of them. Many people don't want to put in the effort of helping make BPS a better place so they use the city for what they want, drive up the prices and then when the kids are old enough they leave.
I went to BPS my entire school career (70's/80's) as did everyone I knew. We didn't have the means to go anywhere else but plenty of ppl I knew did and they still kept their kids in BPS. I had some awesome teachers and some shitty teachers but your going to get that anywhere. I'm not saying I don't understand why they leave but if they didn't have the means to go elsewhere they would then have to invest in helping make the schools a better place.
A few reasons other than schools
Where I live in Dorchester there are plenty of kids around but not as many as 30 years ago. I also think that there are few reasons (all opinion-based, no sources yet) around the decline of "neighborhood institutions" other than BPS and housing prices:
1. People don't have as many kids as they did 30-40 years ago. One of the main culprits?Prophylactics losing their stigma as "bad".
2. People don't marry as young as they used too, therefore reducing the probability of having multiple children at a younger age.
3. Institutional issues that make parents nervous about leaving their kids with other adults, see "Catholic Church".
4. The explosion of youth "club/elite/travel" teams. Parents do not want their kids playing in the local neighborhood recreation league anymore. It's "not good enough" for their kid. So they find, and pay through the nose, for AAU, soccer, hockey, and lacrosse travel teams. And these travel teams do not play other city teams. They travel to NH, NY, CT to play other club teams. Which in turn reduces the number of kids available, literally available in the neighborhood on the weekend, to play little league simply because they want to play.
5. Kids like video games and so do their parents. They aren't being pushed out the door to play because their parents also grew up playing video games. And the parents think "I turned out fine, so will they" But that does remove the opportunity for kids to learn the skills of how to interact with peers, how to play, and how to share. I'm guilty of it myself. I know that there are moments when I should have my daughter "free play" but there also times where she gets to use the ipad as a treat. I get it. I grew up with a nintendo.
6. BPS, housing, etc that have already been mentioned.
Larry needs to get out of Dorchester more...
The number of children living in Boston has dropped during the past 40-60 years but several neighborhoods have actually had increases, and more children live in Boston than a decade ago (but fewer than in 1990).
Data from the US Census shows that the South End, Back Bay/Beacon Hill, Charlestown, East Boston, and West Roxbury had increases in the numbers of children living there in 2010 compared to 2000 and 1990. Meanwhile, the number of children in Dorchester (where Larry DiCara is from) decreased, as did Mattapan, Hyde Park, and Roxbury. Too expensive to live there? Or did people move out of the city in the mid-00's because they wanted to move to cities and towns where they thought their kids could get better education?
My (much-lamented) bar charts:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/finallyboston/sets/72157632970469843/with/...