Manhattan's Little Ones Come in Bigger Numbers
Story time at the DT-UT cafe in Manhattan; activities for children in the borough attract many families.
By EDUARDO PORTER
December 1, 2005
The sidewalks crowded with strollers, the panoply of new clubs catering to the toddler set and the trail of cupcake crumbs that seem to crisscross Manhattan are proof: The children are back.
After a decade of steady decline, the number of children under 5 in Manhattan increased more than 26 percent from 2000 to 2004, census estimates show, surpassing the 8 percent increase in small children citywide during the same period and vastly outstripping the slight overall growth in population in the borough and city.
Even as soaring house prices have continued to lift the cost of raising a family beyond the means of many Americans, the borough's preschool population reached almost 97,000 last year, the most since the 1960's.
This increase has perplexed social scientists, who have grown used to seeing Manhattan families disappear into Brooklyn and New Jersey, and it has pushed the borough into 11th place among New York State counties ranked by percentage of population under 5. In 2000, fewer than one in 20 Manhattan residents were under 5, putting the borough in 58th place.
''Potentially this is very good news for New York,'' said Kathleen Gerson, a professor of sociology at New York University. ''It depends on whether this is a short-term blip or a long-term trend. We must understand what explains the rise.''
Indeed, nobody can say for sure what caused the baby boom, but several factors clearly played a part.
The city's growing cohorts of immigrants may have contributed, as the number of children in Manhattan born to foreign-born parents has risen slightly since the 1990's. But other social scientists say that the number of births is growing at the other end of the income scale.
''I wouldn't be surprised if it had to do with more rich families having babies and staying in Manhattan,'' said Andrew A. Beveridge, a professor of sociology at Queens College.
According to census data, 16.4 percent of Manhattan families earned more than $200,000 last year, up from 13.7 percent in 2000.
Kathryne Lyons, 40, a mother of two who left her job as a vice president of a commercial real estate firm when her second daughter was born three years ago, acknowledges that having children in the city is a tougher proposition if one cannot afford nannies, music lessons and other amenities, which, as the wife of an investment banker, she can. ''It's much more difficult to be here and not be well to do.''
Over the past few years, New York has become more family-friendly, clearly benefiting from the perception that the city's quality of life is improving. Test scores in public schools have improved, and according to F.B.I. statistics, New York is the nation's safest large city.
Sociologists and city officials believe that these improvements in the quality of life in Manhattan may have stanched the suburban flight that occurred in the 1990's. And while Manhattan lacks big backyards for children to play in, it offers a packed selection of services, which can be especially useful for working mothers.
In fact, the baby boomlet also may pose challenges to a borough that in many ways struggles to serve its young. According to Childcare Inc., day care centers in the city have enough slots for only one in five babies under age 3 who need it.
And while census figures show that children over 5 have continued to decline as a percentage of the Manhattan population, if the children under 5 stay, they could well put extra stress on the city's public and private school systems, already strained beyond capacity in some neighborhoods. Private preschools and kindergartens ''are already more difficult to get into than college,'' said Amanda Uhry, who owns Manhattan Private School Advisors.
So who are these children? Robert Smith, a sociologist at Baruch College who is an expert on the growing Mexican immigration to the city, argued that the children of Mexican immigrants -- many of whom live in the El Barrio neighborhood in East Harlem -- are a big part of the story.
But this is unlikely to account for all of the increase. For example, in 2003, fewer than 1,000 babies were born to Mexican mothers living in Manhattan. And births to Dominicans, the largest immigrant group in the city, have fallen sharply.
Some scholars suspect that a substantial part of Manhattan's surge is being driven by homegrown forces: namely, the decision by professionals to raise their families here.
Consider the case of Tim and Lucinda Karter. Despite the cost of having a family in the city, Ms. Karter, a 38-year old literary agent, and her husband, an editor at a publishing house, stayed in Manhattan to have their two daughters, Eleanor and Sarah.
They had Eleanor seven and a half years ago while living in a one-bedroom apartment near Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side. Then they bought the apartment next door and completed an expansion of their home into a four-bedroom apartment two years ago. A little less than a year ago, they had Sarah.
''Manhattan is a fabulous, stimulating place to raise a child,'' Ms. Karter said. ''We didn't plan it but we just delayed the situation. We were just carving away and then there was room.''
The city's businesses and institutions are responding to the rising toddler population. Three years ago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art began a family initiative including programs geared to children 3 and older.
The Museum of Modern Art has programs for those as young as 4. In January, Andy Stenzler and a group of partners opened Kidville, a 16,000-square-foot smorgasbord of activities for children under 5 -- and their parents -- on the Upper East Side.
''We were looking for a concentration of young people,'' Mr. Stenzler said. ''There are 16,000 kids under 5 between 60th and 96th Streets.''
Many of the new offerings reflect the wealth of the parents who have decided to call Manhattan home. Citibabes, which opened in TriBeCa last month, provides everything from a gym and workplaces with Internet connections for parents, to science lessons, language classes and baby yoga for their children. It charges families $6,250 for unlimited membership for three months.
Manhattan preschools can charge $23,000 a year. Ms. Uhry, with Private School Advisors, charges parents $6,000 a year just to coach them through the application process to get their children in.
Yet in spite of the high costs, small spaces and infuriating extras that seem unique to Manhattan -- like the preschools that require an I.Q. test -- many parents would never live anywhere else.
''Manhattan has always been a great place for raising your children,'' said Lori Robinson, the president of the New Mommies Network, a networking project for mothers on the Upper West Side. ''It's easier to be in the city with a baby. It's less isolation. You feel you are part of society.''
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company>
No comments:
Post a Comment