Why are people with kids leaving U.S. cities" | Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

It?s not easy to raise a family in a big U.S. city?but it?s not any easier anywhere else in this country In January, a young mother wheeled her stroller into a New York City subway station that?like most New York City subway stations?had no elevator. As many city parents have done out of desperation at one time or another, the 22-year-old mother picked up the stroller to carry her baby down the dozens of stairs to the platform. She fell, tumbling to her death. Her 1-year-old survived.
This tragic event epitomizes how American cities are openly hostile to families, and it was the only thing I could think of when I read a story in The Atlantic this week that opens with a New York City mom trying to get her two kids and a stroller up a staircase. ?The mom would fold the stroller to the size of a boogie board, then drag it behind her with her right hand, while cradling the younger and typically crying child in the crook of her left arm,? writes Derek Thompson in ?The Future of the City is Childless.? ?It looked like hell?or, as I once suggested to a roommate, a carefully staged public service announcement against family formation.?
Thompson?s essay addresses what?s become an obsession for urbanist writers, including the writers at his own publication: For all the people, attention, and money currently pouring into U.S. cities, it turns out that few o...