City Kids: Families Living Downtown

I found this article speaking of the higher number of kids living in downtown columbus and surrounding gentrified neighborhoods.

Anyone else notice more children in certain central cities, that are newer to the gentrification game in downtown.


City kids
Families living Downtown with children still rare, but building boom suggests changes coming
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 3:38 AM
By Dennis Fiely

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Meghan Gauriloff | Dispatch
Milling around the Short North, from left: resident Molly Ricksecker, 13; Bryn Webster, 13; resident Jailyn Soto, 14; and Stephan Beavers, 13


FRED SQUILLANTE | Dispatch
Alison Maniace, 5, on the balcony of her home in Waterford Tower


Meghan Gauriloff | Dispatch
Short North teenagers and their suburban friends have some fun in the Arena District.


Five-year-old Alison Maniace is growing up in Columbus with a New York lifestyle.

A sixth-floor condo in the heart of Downtown is the only home she has known.

"We love it here," said her mother, Jana -- even though the 18-story Waterford Tower has no other youngsters.

Alison spends time in the indoor pool, bounces balls on the racquetball courts and plays piano in the party room.

Her view includes sights unseen in suburbs -- such as a window washer scaling the building like Spider-Man.

Children's programs at the Main Library, COSI Columbus, BalletMet Columbus and the Columbus Museum of Art have become regular parts of her upbringing.

"I think living Downtown has really been good for Alison's development," her mom said.

Still, as their daughter prepares to enter first grade, the Maniaces, including father Jim, are contemplating a move to Bexley.

"This building is wonderful, but it's not set up for families," said Mrs. Maniace, who noted that Alison sleeps in a converted den.

The couple would like to stay Downtown, in housing better-suited to families.

"We're looking to see what is out there," she said.

With more than 4,300 Downtown-area units constructed or planned since 2002, the choices would seem to be plentiful.

Yet the lofts and multistory condos that make up many new projects cater mostly to empty nesters and childless professional couples.

"Buyers have one thing in common: no kids," said Marc Conte, director of research and information for the Downtown Development Resource Center.

Perceptions of high crime rates and substandard public schools make the Downtown market a tough sell to families, according to developers.

And unlike other cities such as Chicago, New York and San Francisco, where large numbers of families live downtown, Columbus is surrounded by attractive suburbs within easy commutes.

"Living in a Downtown condo is still a stretch for families in Columbus," said longtime Downtown booster Cleve Ricksecker, head of the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District.

Nevertheless, the gentrification of neighborhoods such as German, Italian and Victorian villages -- contiguous to the central city -- has helped introduce parents to the virtues of an urban upbringing for children.

They cite these reasons: easy access to parks, sporting events and cultural activities; less reliance on cars; and exposure to diverse populations and aesthetic, historical buildings.

"I love the hustle and the bustle," said Janet Dawson, who with husband Rich is raising three children, ages 9 to 12, in German Village.

"People who live in the suburbs pull into their two-car garages after work, go into their houses and have no contact with their neighbors. I know the names of everyone on my street, and I don't think too many people in the suburbs can say that.

"At Giant Eagle, we can be standing in line between a woman wearing a mink coat and another with food stamps. We have gay friends, and our kids just see them as regular people."

The impressions about crime and schools don't match the realities, parents and developers said.

Crime, they said, is concentrated in pockets -- and the educational options include Roman Catholic and other private schools, charter schools and Columbus alternative schools.

"I'm more nervous with my daughter in the car than walking with her Downtown," Mrs. Maniace said.

Residents learn how to compensate for a lack of amenities common in suburbs.

"We don't have a yard," Dawson said, "but we have a 17-acre park (Schiller) two blocks away."

Stacey Blasko, who lives in Victorian Village with her husband and three children younger than 7, heads Midtown Parents and Kids, a play group that provides support and companionship for more than two dozen families.

"Our kids are the only ones their ages on our block, so it's hard to find playmates for them," she said. "If we lived in Bexley, we would probably have a half-dozen families on our block.

"Our goal is to help people stay in urban neighborhoods. We would have been much less likely to stay without friends who were also parents going through our same issues."

Play-group members Antony Shuttleworth and Janet Aski live with their 4-year-old son, Julian, near a bar in Victorian Village.

"The noise sometimes wakes him up at night and exposes him to behaviors and language we'd rather not have him see or hear," Shuttleworth said.

"Otherwise, we like it here and see it as a child-friendly place."

A resident of the Short North since 1980, Ricksecker is raising three children, ages 8 to 13, with his wife, Melissa.

Their oldest, Molly, counts just one friend who lives full time in the neighborhood.

Yet the eighth-grader regularly welcomes suburban friends from her school, Ecole Kenwood, on the Northwest Side.

"A lot of them want to live here," Molly said, "and have asked their parents to move.

"We walk anywhere we want, whenever we want. We go to Phillip's Coney Island for grilled-cheese sandwiches and fries, the Arena Grand for movies, Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream and the Coffee Table for bagels."

Too many Columbus families don't consider Downtown living, said Mrs. Maniace, who spent her first eight years in a Queens high-rise in New York.

"There is really no precedent for it here," she said. "People are not familiar with it and don't know what it's like.

"But it is doable and convenient. If there were more Downtown housing options set up for families, the area might be seeing more families."

Developers hope that the day will come.

An influx of residents into the housing being built, Conte predicted, will draw families in its wake.

"As the Downtown market matures, we should start seeing more families," he said. "They are the last piece of the puzzle. But we have to focus on where we can have the greatest success now and build on that."

Mark Wagenbrenner, developer of Jeffrey Place in Italian Village, expects many of today's childless urban dwellers to become tomorrow's urban families.

"When couples who have already been urbanized start raising kids, they will not want to move away from a lifestyle they've grown accustomed to," he said.

Melissa Ricksecker in the Short North has already seen a change in attitude.

"People used to imply I was a terrible mother for raising kids in what they perceived to be a crime-ridden, morally abject neighborhood," she said, "but I am not getting as much flak about that as I used to.">