Kids in Cities, Again and Again and Again.

Posted by on March 23, 2007

A new analysis of census figures released last year by the New York Times concludes that the surge of babies in Manhattan belongs mainly to wealthy white families: "At least half of the growth was generated by children who are white and non-Hispanic. Their ranks expanded by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2005. For the first time since at least the 1960s, white children now outnumber either black or Hispanic youngsters in that age group in Manhattan. The analysis shows that Manhattan?s 35,000 or so white non-Hispanic toddlers are being raised by parents whose median income was $284,208 a year in 2005, which means they are growing up in wealthier households than similar youngsters in any other large county in the country....

"What those findings imply, demographers say, is not only that the socioeconomic gap between Manhattan and the other boroughs is widening, but also that the population of Manhattan, in some ways, is beginning to look more like the suburbs ? or what they used to look like ? than like the rest of the city. 'We knew Manhattan was having a baby boom,' said Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College of the City University of New York, who conducted the analysis. 'Now we know who?s having the babies.'

"Children under 5 now account for more than 1 in 20 Manhattan residents, about the same proportion as in Queens and Staten Island. Married couples in Manhattan are just as likely to have young children living at home as in the rest of the city and the metropolitan area....

"The raw numbers are subject to interpretation, but, coupled with anecdotal evidence, what they generally suggest is that more well-to-do Manhattanites who might otherwise have moved to the suburbs with their children are choosing to raise them in the city, at least early on."