Where Have All The Children Gone?

Occasionally, I begin to have a twinge of nostalgia for life in my former adoptive city of San Francisco. Then I read another article from the SF Chronicle, or see another photo like the one here, taken at the cable car turntable at Powell and Market Streets. I immediately come back to my senses.

The Chron recently suffered the shock of discovering that San Francisco has the lowest percentage of children of any major United States city. It spent two pages and an entire editorial attempting to understand how such a thing could happen. If the editors of the newspaper would ever walk outside their offices or leave their walled and guarded mansions in Pacific Heights, or travel in the city using public transportation instead of chauffeured limousines, they might be able to figure it out.

Just for your reference, in 1960, 25 percent of the population was comprised of children (low, even then). By 1970 it had slipped to 22 percent. Today the population of Babylon by the Bay includes a mere 13.4 percent of the population under the age of eighteen. The primary reason for this precipitous drop in child population is not what you might think. It's the economic condition that makes San Francisco a city of the small population of the very rich versus the large population of poor, struggling working poor, homeless people and welfare dependents. The middle class has almost entirely disappeared.

Only two demographics are showing any indication of bucking the trend. The first is the large number of Asian immigrants joined with a somewhat smaller influx of illegal aliens from Central and South America. The second are the wealthy young urban professionals (and they tend to wait to have their children until they are in their thirties and then only have one or two kids at most). The city's median income for a family of three is $92,700. For the yuppies having children, it's closer to $111,240. But that figure will get you a small apartment in a relatively safe neighborhood, but not a house in a decent neighborhood. Unlike most of the rest of America, home prices have continued to rise with few new homes or luxury condos left unpurchased.

30 percent of families with children now earn close to $140,000 per year. The comparable demographic in 1990 comprised 20 percent of the families with children. The result has been to turn the town into a city which is much whiter than it was just two or three decades earlier. And this is a city that prides itself on its diversity. Though many white couples can afford to have children (on a budget), the largest number of whites moving into the city have simply chosen to have the "good life" unhampered by costly children. No white couple with any sense at all is going to send their kids to the public schools, so one of the highest costs of having children is those private schools.

The large gay population is also a factor in the decline of families with children, though the trendiness of gay marriage and gay adoption have brought those numbers up. Gays tend to be among the most affluent of San Francisco's residents, so they also fit into the demographic of couples earning 50 percent more than the median family income.

Then there are two other factors which might not deter singles and couples without children from moving into the city, but would deter families with children. The first the Chronicle phrases as "the perceptions that it is unsafe to live in San Francisco." The crime statistics simply say it is unsafe. In fact, San Francisco has become one of the most dangerous big cities in the country to live in. The local cops would love to enforce the law, but the police administrators and the city politicians are radical leftists who think the only crime is "white collar" crime. A few dead bodies here and there, and widespread property destruction don't faze them.

The second adjunct factor is the immense number of aggressive vagrants. Tourists don't like it, but they don't live with it on a daily basis, so they often find it peculiar but quaint. Only the very wealthy can afford to live in neighborhoods where homeless people are unlikely to congregate (like Nancy Pelosi, for instance). Adults have the ability to choose to ignore them, but people who care about their children don't expose them to filthy and often dangerous bums.

I lived in what is considered a "safe" neighborhood, in a fourth floor walkup but with a wonderful view. It had two bedrooms, a moderate-sized living room, a kitchen, one bathroom, and no dining room. A new young couple with a baby on the way could live in it comfortably. But how many could afford it? I checked the rentals just before I left town, and my apartment was now listed at $3250.00 per month. It was rented within a week of my leaving town (I later found out it was by three foreign exchange students with Arabic last names). During the time I lived in my "safe" neighborhood, I saw one murder and one fatal police shooting within a half-block of my apartment house.

In addition to the above, there are those notorious San Francisco rituals of public sex, S&M booths on the streets, urine and feces on every street (except those notable enclaves mentioned above) and large homeless encampments in every city park, including the once pristine and beautiful Golden Gate Park. Even those who have no criminal intent can still be disgusting since it is perfectly legal to walk around in San Francisco buck-naked. Not many do, of course, but those who do rarely look like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. Who in his right mind would want to expose a young child to that?

And on top of it all, San Franciscans are taxed at the highest rates in a state which itself has the highest rates in the nation. When the idiot 99 percenters talk about the rich getting richer, they should turn their eyes to San Francisco. Those in skilled trades or middle management who don't work for a tech corporation down the Peninsula or a film company which has no offices in the city are also being pushed out. That's because the companies they work for can no longer afford to do business in the anti-capitalist, tax 'em to death city of Saint Francis.

During the time I lived in San Francisco, I watched the exodus of Southern Pacific Railroad, Pacific Telephone (now part of AT&T), Levi Strauss, Bank of America, Burgermeister Breweries, Union Oil, Standard Oil and even Rice-A-Roni of San Francisco (which is now located across the Bay in San Leandro). The once-thriving Pacific Stock Exchange does most of its business in Los Angeles. Some of the businesses left San Francisco for the suburbs. Others, seeing the big picture, moved out of California entirely.

So if you enjoy the sounds of the laughter of children playing safely in a public park or joining their friends at a neighborhood gathering, look anywhere but San Francisco. And don't expect the Chronicle to be able to tell you why.