Uneasy Rhetoric

I missed this when it came out. In a story on August 18th (“Home Alone: Households of Singles Go to First in U.S.” by Steven Bodzin, no longer available on the L.A. Times site, here’s a reprint), the L.A. Times reports that, according to the 2000 census, the percentage of single-adult households now exceeds the number of couple-with-children households (the previous most common).

According to the article, 31.6% of all homes were single-adult, while married or unmarried couples with children make up 31.3% of all homes. Furthermore, the number of solo households grew by 21%, almost twice the growth rate of the next highest category; married couples without children grew by 11%.

So much for my theory that urban development needs to do more to cater to families with children. From the article:

Michael Carline, an economist with the National Assn. of Homebuilders, said unmarried people “are probably not just thinking of it as a transitional arrangement. That makes them more likely to buy a house.”

For builders, he said, that means a bigger market for homes with less privacy, fewer rooms, and reduced square footage, but “more Jacuzzis.”

“They place a greater priority on being close to the action,” Carline said.

“They are not worried about school districts or space, so they put a higher priority to being close in. That’s been a factor in boosting demand for urban or close-in suburban housing.”

I guess the single adult and childless couple market is large enough now to accommodate significant new development. But that doesn’t mean that developers should ignore families with children. Given the human propensity to procreate, these family units will always make up a large enough segment of the population that they will have to be listened to. Relegating them to the suburbs will do nothing to change our sprawling development culture.

No, we still need to consider the family with children when designing our new urban neighborhoods. Like their childless counterparts, many of these families may also rate being close to the action higher than having a big house and more cars than licensed drivers. Frankly, if I had children, I’d probably want to escape to a Jacuzzi once in a while. I would be worried about school districts, and hopefully I’d have enough neighbors in my same position to form a significant political interest (some people call them “special interests”), but hopefully I’d also live in a neighborhood where my child would learn about the world, about culture, and about existing within a community instead of being isolated from it.