Cities are pricing out the one demographic that could save them.

U.S. cities are hollowing out. Between 2020 and 2024, New York City lost 18% of its population under age 5. Chicago’s Cook County shed 15%. Los Angeles County, 14%. These aren’t marginal shifts, and they represent a wholesale abandonment of urban cores by the demographic cities need most: families with children.

The exodus is no mystery. U.S. cities have spent decades optimizing for young professionals. They’ve built bike lanes, dog parks, co-working spaces, and entertainment districts, using zoning and permitting to court one vibrant demographic while ignoring another. Meanwhile, the residents who often anchor communities — parents raising children, investing in schools, organizing block associations, and voting in local elections — have been systematically priced out.

The result is a crisis of urban sustainability, and the primary culprit isn’t crime, failing schools, or suburban nostalgia. It’s housing costs.

Read the full Washington Examiner op-ed here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/4502761/cities-pricing-out-families/