09 December 2008

Breaking News Liberty Twp Has Kids

The Enquirer had a big story today, with big headlines. The story was an analysis of census numbers showing that Liberty Township has the most kids and least old people of any "community" in the State. Nowhere in the article do they give the census date. Are these numbers for last year, 2005? How can anyone know? Maybe it was in the print edition? Who reads that anymore?

A sampling of their numbers for Liberty Twp:
53.8 % of the households have kids
75.1 % of the households are married couples
4.8% of the residents are over 65 years old

Is it good for kids to grow up not seeing old people or black people or gay people or even single people and poor people?

"It's minivan and SUV central out here,"...she discussed school enrollment trends - a steady increase of 300 to 400 students each year until a drop-off this fall...
Note the "drop-off this fall". Also note the almost complete stop in construction of new homes. Also note the falling value of those homes. None of this is mentioned, because that is new news, not old news, and apparently the Enquirer is only interested in reporting old news...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw this too. Liberty Twp. is the last place I would want to have kids in. Call me crazy but living in Pleasantville just does not sound like a good childhood to me.

DP said...

"It's minivan and SUV central out here". And later in the article, regarding pickup time at the school: "I don't think I've seen a car yet." Great.

Highest housing growth rate + 90% homeownership + no diversity of housing type (I envision a lot of vinyl SFHs) + lack of age diversity. Anyone want to guess how far out the implosion is? My money's on 2030 +/- 5 years.

I have yet to determine my opinion of the "family pub" with video monitors of the play area.

CityKin said...

I love the family pub idea, but not sure about the video monitors of the play area.

VisuaLingual said...

Is it good for kids to grow up not seeing old people or black people or gay people or even single people and poor people?

No, it's effed up.

5chw4r7z said...

diversity isn't for everyone. Some people actually want to go through life with no surprises, where everything is exactly how they think it should be. They don't have to think or react, they know what every situation is going to be in advance and how they'll react to it, they can just exist.
I can't do that, I need new experiences, surprises and randomness. One week in a burb and I'd be sticking hot pokers in my eyes to see if I was still alive.

valereee said...

I thought I'd hate living in the 'burbs, too. When we moved to Cincinnati, we lived in Clifton. But due to some special needs, it turned out we needed to move to a school district that could serve those needs, and we ended up in Montgomery. Imagine my surprise to find that I can walk from my house to the library, my kids' elementary, intermediate, and junior high schools, two parks, the post office, the produce market, and many independent locally-owned restaurants. And lo and behold...there's diversity. Because of the maturity of the suburb, there are many older residents. The schools attract numerous foreign nationals working for local companies. Probably 20% of my kids' classmates are Jewish and significant numbers are Muslim, Hindu, or other non-Christian religions, and the schools are no more "white" than the US as a whole.

Don't assume that just because it's a suburb, it can't have any diversity. That's as close-minded as those who assume that just because it's urban, it can't be a good place to raise kids.

DP said...

Valeree -

You're absolutely right. Suburb does not equal 'bad'. But some suburbs are bad.

Montgomery is a wonderful place (as are a number of other suburbs in the area) and, for all the reasons you listed, my wife and I came very close to moving there. But all those things you listed are also untrue for places like Liberty Twp.

At least as far as my posts go, any broad generalizations about the evils of suburbia, are the result of a failure to be more specific about the types of places to which I'm referring. I suspect this is the case for others here as well.

valereee said...

DP, oh, I'm with you on that. I drive up 747 toward Trenton every other week to get my milk. The buildup is just depressing. I can't imagine living anywhere near there; I don't even like driving through it. I avoid Big Box and Chain-everything territory as much as possible. But Madeira, Mariemont, and Montgomery are actually pretty livable.

We moved out here thinking that after the kids were out of school, we'd probably end up moving back to Clifton. But we've been very pleasantly surprised. I can do many of my errands on foot, and the area was built up early enough that there's no remaining space to fit strip malls and big box stores in.