NYC beckons new parents as North Jersey suburbs no longer seen as only place to raise kidsSunday, February 17, 2013, Last updated: Sunday February 17, 2013, 12:55 PM
BY DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITER
The Record
In a striking reversal, growing numbers of young parents are choosing the bustle of New York City over the calm of suburban life as a place to live, a trend that is already changing the face of some neighborhoods across North Jersey and could have long-term implications for schools, the housing market and beyond.
The number of children under the age of 5 has fallen 20 to 40 percent in many wealthy communities, with an overall drop of 12 percent across Bergen and Passaic counties since 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. At the same time, middle- and upper-income areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn have seen virtually the opposite shift in both the number of young adults as well as preschool children, an analysis of the data by The Record found.
The trend, a break in a pattern that has held since before World War II, has left Bergen County with 6,000 fewer children younger than 5 years old than it had in 2000. Passaic’s figure, meanwhile, has slid by about 6,000 since 2005. Similar declines have appeared in suburban Westchester and Nassau counties in New York, the analysis found.
“This is a huge deal,” said Andrew Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College in New York City who studies population flows. “Affluent men and women in this area who want to have kids are much more likely to have kids in New York City and not move to the suburbs, which is the opposite of the way things used to go. The city is in, and the suburbs are out.”
A case in point is Caitlin Sullivan-Pond, who was raised in North Jersey but now lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with her husband and their 16-month-old son. Unlike her parents and countless others in the past, the 31-year-old mom says she has no plans to follow the traditional child-rearing, city-to-suburbs route.
“It would be a bit quiet for us,” she said. “If there is a difference between my generation and my parents’ generation, it’s that we don’t want to quite give up having fun.”
New York City’s resurgence is not the only factor driving the recent suburban drop-off in young children, as a weak economy, uncertain job prospects and women pursuing careers instead of childbirth are all helping to drive the changes.
And to be sure, the allure of the house-yard-and-picket-fence American dream to the nuclear family also remains strong. Census data show that 172,000 households, or about a third of those in Bergen and Passaic, have children.
“It’s yet to be determined how long lasting this new trend is,” said Vincent Parrillo, a sociology professor at William Paterson University in Wayne. “I don’t think the suburbs are in trouble, per se, as the American way of life.”
But while economic forces go in cycles, the shift in preference for urban life could portend long-term changes in the status of the suburbs as a place to buy houses, settle and raise children.
Already, the fallout is hitting at least a few North Jersey school systems, causing reductions in the number of classes or rerouting of children among schools, officials say.
“It’s astonishing. Remarkable,” said Adam Fried, superintendent in the Harrington Park School District, which cut the number of kindergarten classes after the enrollment dropped from 70 to 36 children in 2012. “It’s a big concern.”
Similar effects have hit preschool operators.“From around 2008 until this year, there absolutely was a drop-off in the number of families moving out from the city,” said Sara Losch, director of the Barnert Temple preschool in Franklin Lakes.
Real estate experts say they’ve noticed the trend as well. Upwardly mobile young families have long been the lifeblood of upscale suburbia. As their numbers decline, the impact could be felt by home sellers already reeling from 20 to 30 percent price drops the past five years, said Jeffrey Otteau, an East Brunswick real estate appraiser who follows the statewide housing market.
“The effect will be less demand and subpar price increases for suburban real estate, and price declines for large-lot luxury suburban houses,” he said. “It’s a zero-sum game.”
Among those witnessing the city-versus-suburb choice up close is Alison Bernstein, who founded a Manhattan-based agency that helps families move from New York to the suburbs. She said that while more young parents are staying in the city longer, many still look to the suburbs when they outgrow their apartments or want better schools for their children.
“There are two schools of thought: one is to raise kids in the city and make whatever sacrifices you have to make; and the other is from people who say, ‘I want to leave the city, I want to have two cars, I want a yard and a have a barbeque in the afternoon, and not have to stress about all that,’Ÿ” she said. “The suburbs are still extremely strong.’’
Jeremy Fletcher and his wife and two young sons, for example, moved from an apartment in Manhattan to a three-bedroom house in Teaneck in October 2011. City living had become too cramped, and they needed to find a larger, yet affordable, place to live.
“I love not having to drive around for 20 minutes to find a parking space,” said Fletcher, a 38-year-old high school band teacher.
Reflects earlier trendsThe trend flowering today builds on other demographic forces that had their roots a generation ago, when the United States went through a slump in childbirths. That led to a drop in the number of adults in prime parenting years in the 2000s.
Job losses in the Great Recession and stagnant wages further tamped down childbirth.
“When parents come into the school with their kids, we are not seeing a whole lot of strollers with younger siblings,” said Brian Gatens, chief school administrator in Norwood.
But a preference for New York City, reinforced by improvement in the quality of city life, looms as a factor even if economic trends improve.
Two decades out from a time when violent crime in the city dominated the headlines as much as graffiti covered its subways, urban life beats the suburbs for parents like Peter Grossman.
“I have safety concerns like every parent,” said Grossman, a 37-year-old magazine photo editor who grew up in Morris County and now lives in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn with his two children, ages 4 and 6. “But they’re getting a childhood that is a lot richer than I had, and I don’t think they are any less safe.” The chance of his moving to the suburbs, he said, is “absolutely zero.”
Examples of the effect cut across North Jersey: In Norwood, the census count of preschoolers went from 320 in 2000, to 214 in 2010; while it dropped from 344, to 193, in Harrington Park; 703, to 435 in Franklin Lakes; 3,313, to 2,458 in Wayne; and 935, to 689 in Ringwood.
“I see that reality when I walk in the door and I look at class sizes,” said Gatens, noting that enrollments in Norwood have gone from 70 to 80 per grade, to 50 to 60 in the lower grades.
In more modest communities, the picture is mixed, with decreases of up to 10 percent in places like Lodi, Ridgefield and Prospect Park. The only municipalities in Bergen and Passaic counties to record gains in the 2000s for the youngest age group were in the less-affluent southern halves of the two counties.
Sociologists say more modest areas have been hit less, partly because those communities have more immigrants, whose birth rates have stayed higher than those of native-born residents.
The altering landscape is bringing hard choices to some local school systems.
In Franklin Lakes, some students who live closest to Woodside Avenue School were moved farther away to the High Mountain School, after that school felt the brunt of enrollment declines, said Superintendent Frank Romano.
School officials said other tough choices will come if they have to consider eliminating classes with just a small number of students, laying off teachers or reorganizing neighborhood school boundaries.
“Certainly the possibility of reducing the number of [classes] is a reality for schools and is a reality for us,” Romano said.
Whether the preference for urban life among affluent parents continues into the future remains to be seen.
But Beveridge, the Queens College sociologist, discerns a structural change in how parents see the suburbs, especially if they want to be closer to jobs in the city.
“The suburbs were set up nicely for the idea that the husband would commute to and from city, and the wife would stay home,” he said. “Now, she is working, so that completely changes things, particularly if she is working at a relatively high-status job.”
For Sullivan-Pond, a photography editor and former Montclair resident whose husband is a magazine advertising director, the suburban lure is barely a second thought. She said she loves being able to put her toddler in a stroller, head out of her $2,800-a-month apartment and have “the buzz of the city all around me.” As a stay-at-home-mom for the moment, her agenda on any given day can include a walk through Central Park, a visit to a bookstore or a meander through a museum.
“Most of my friends see things the way I do,” said Sullivan-Pond, whose neighborhood saw a 22 percent increase in young children in the 2000s. “I have no ill feelings about the suburbs. But we figure we don’t want to be settled down in the way that term used to mean.”
Choosing the city over the suburbs North Jersey saw steep drops in the number of children under age 5 in the 2000s, especially in wealthier areas, while Manhattan saw the opposite trend.
[See map and tabulated material below]
[The "mouse over" on the map shows "Hackensack 2000: 2,465, 2010: 2,774, Change: 12.5%"]
Note: Categories are defined as follows: Upper-income covers municipalities in North Jersey or census tracts in Manhattan with median household incomes of at least $125,000; upper-middle covers those with median incomes of $100,000 to $124,999; middle-income, from $80,000 to $99,999; lower-middle from $65,000 to $79,999 and lower-income below $65,000.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Dave Sheingold/staff analysis
Staff Writer Colleen Diskin contributed to this article.
Email: sheingold@northjersey.com
