The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

City or kids?

There is one stage in your life where this urbanist stuff makes complete sense. Back when you were Young, perhaps Unmarried, and definitely still without kids.

This was once my life. I was a yuppie in Milford. All this urbanism stuff made sense. I could walk to the town centre, or to the bus station if I wanted to go to the city, and I could ride my bicycle to work. If I would have had access to car rentals or car share, I would perhaps have sold my car.

And you can probably still do this in Auckland, today. If you’re a single, or a couple without kids.

Because, it does come with a certain premium. Real estate in non car dependent areas is quite expensive. So what can you do to blunt that financial impact?

1. Drive less. Cars are expensive. With a bit of luck you can even not have a car at all.

2. Get a small apartment. Who needs a backyard if the entire city can be your backyard?

3. Rent instead of buying. A rental market is capped by what people can afford. If you’re buying, you’re competing with people who trade property as if it were some memecoin.

So, how does getting children change this calculus?

1. If you want to get out with a child, you’re going to drive. Have you ever tried to take a bus with a stroller? And just how much spare time do you still have? *1

2. Seriously, just. Don’t.

3. Renting is fraught — you have very poor security of tenancy. You don’t just move house once you get kids. Are you going to have them change schools every time?

   People like to flip houses a lot, and, pop quiz: can you go look up real estate on Trade Me, and tell me which ones for sale have tenants in them? Can you search only for houses in vacant possession?

So if you have kids, your life as an urbanist will be over. Kids, car free, affordable. Pick two.

So, is this just me being grumpy?

A look at age histograms confirms this. The 15–20 and 20–25 bins of course contain students. The bulge extends a bit higher, so presumably people are staying for a while after finishing their studies, or young professionals without kids also move in. But they don’t hang around with kids: the under 15’s are underrepresented even compared to the older age brackets.

The city centre genuinely does not have a lot of children. So then, where do we find children? Well, fellow urbanists, that is where the S-word comes in.

I don’t think that city centres in general are unsuitable places for kids, but in Auckland, our city centre certainly is. (This should be obvious to you if you ever walk around over there). If we build high density housing in the suburbs, will it become similarly unlivable for families with kids?

Even out in the suburbs, if you think you’re seeing less kids than you used to, you’re not imagining this. Falling birth rates are now hanging as a sword of Damocles over many developed countries. We’ll probably want to avoid making that problem worse with our push for intensification.

Think of the children may be a meme, but we ignore it at our own peril.

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