Raising your kids in the city?

[Bill Hoff]

Has anyone else decided to raise their kids in one of Jacksonville's denser, more-walkable neighborhoods?

I grew up in Riverside, near 5 Points.  8 years old to college. I like to think I turned out ok. : )

I now live in Springfield because I wanted a similar feel & lifestyle to that which I grew up in. 

[Bill Hoff]

Of course we are talking Springfield here, not Bed-Stuy or Hoboken or South Loop.  "City" is relative in Jax, but personally I would be weary of raising kids in Springfield because I would be concerned with proximity to crime and just the general pace of the gentrification of the neighborhood.  You could live in the middle of the tiny so-called "bubble" that is Springfield and if you allow your kids to bike around like most kids do, they only have to go like 3 blocks before they're in real rough areas with high crime.  I don't need to already have kids to know that for me personally that would be highly unappealing, but to each their own.  I would wait for the gays/artists to sweep through the area a little more, revitalize a much larger area more than it is now, and then I would very well consider it.  San Marco is equally close to downtown and just a much better "side of the tracks" for raising kids, in my very personal opinion.  But to each their own.

It's clear you're not familiar with the neighborhood. Just as a parent wouldn't allow their child to ride their bike on the wrong side of the tracks in Springfield, neither would a Riverside paret. Or San Marco. Or Murray Hill. All have "nice" areas exceptionally close to "bad" areas, and everyone seems to be doing just fine. It must be a miracle. Unless you could point me to a story where a child has gotten abducted, shot, robbed, etc? And if so, you may want to warn this family moving in:  http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,15427.0.html

The last story I remember was about a group of kids in San Marco beating up another kid, last year perhaps. And they were caught.

[simms3]

^^^Actually Springfield is one of my favorite areas and I visit it every time I am in town to check out progress.  My personal opinion is that if I were to have kids and if I were to live in Jacksonville, I would not choose Springfield in its current state.  If I were single and living in Jacksonville, I would consider, but I still prefer highrise living and I still think there is a little more walkability in Riverside and San Marco.  I am hoping that Springfield really blooms into a dense, walkable place...soon.  To each their own.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Thanks, Simms, every day I get to improve my scanning skills going through your posts.  BTW, as a 'single, educated, white male' how is you have such strong opinions on raising kids in an urban environment, when you said yourself that your own parents sheltered you from such 'hard living'?

I don't think Jacksonville is a bad place to raise kids.  I live in Cedar Hills, but during the school year, my son (12) gets plenty of opportunity to grow up in an urban environment. 

I'll preface by saying I wasn't a huge fan of my own idea at first, but through the past year, I'm feeling like I made the right choice. 

He goes to the magnet school at Ribault and has to take JTA from Lem Turner to DT to Home.  In the course of the past year, he has met quite a few kids his own age, from other neighborhoods, that are in the same situation and it's only made him a better person - not some drug-addled pre-teen that Simms likes to refer to, but I guess if you take the movie 'Kids' at face value, then you should probably shouldn't watch 'Basketball Diaries', because, you know, you'll start thinking that all the catholic school kids like to get wasted before games and snort coke and write poetry.   Please, for the love of God, don't watch, 'Above the Rim'. 

Sorry, tangent.

Made him a better person....   He can get around in this city without the need for a car (read - driver), now.  He's observant enough that when we're driving around, he knows enough about the bus system to know which lines go where.  He catches the school bus, to my office, then he catches a city bus to DT, then he has options.  He can go to Hemming and the Public Library with his DT friends and wait for me to get out of work or he can go straight home to hang out in the 'burbs with the friends he has there - and then he has his chores.

Living in an urban environment makes him a well adjusted, adaptable kid, Simms, not an addict.  And the problems that you're having with your neighbors, I bet he wouldn't.  He'd be comfortable talking to them in the elevator or in the hallway instead of cowering in the corner and feeling some perceived, non-existent threat. 

As a parent, again, I wasn't keen on the idea at first, but he had to get to and from school with 2 working parents.  But with a cellphone with GPS, tracking your kids whereabouts isn't left up to a call from a payphone anymore, so that helps.  And it makes me really proud when we're together out and about and I don't feel the need to hold his hand to cross the street. 

Does your mom or dad still do that, Simmsy?

[BrooklynSouth]

The discussion sort of shifted to how safe Springfield is, but I want to say that my four-year-old daughter is already being exposed to new kinds of people in Riverside and we're very pleased. A story: My wife is of European descent and I am anglo-latino and about a year ago we were living in Ponte Vedra. We took our daughter on a Carnival cruise leaving out of Jacksonville and while we were standing in line for something on the boat she asked, in a very loud voice, "why do those people have black skin?" We'd moved to Jacksonville from Brooklyn, NY when our daughter was only one year old, and my wife and I looked at each other and we were both thinking -- we have to get out of Ponte Vedra!

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I was alluding to that point. 

In the situation that Simms mentioned:

Even I have gotten tired of feeling unsafe occasionally in the elevators or walking up to my building at night

 

I think this is more or less due to the environment he was raised and his general attitude towards anyone not like himself:

I would be concerned with proximity to crime and just the general pace of the gentrification of the neighborhood

I would wait for the gays/artists to sweep through the area a little more

I'm never going to have kids or get married

Personally, if I could manage (read - afford) it, I would be exposing my son to a lot more than just the general 'culture' that is DT Jacksonville.  There would be complete culture immersion across the globe.

[lucinda]

We moved to Springfield in 2003, so our kids have basically been raised in the neighborhood.  They are now 16 and 10.  If you were to ask them what neighborhood in Jacksonville they would want to live in, the answer would unequivocally be Springfield.  Just don't ask them if they want to live in Jacksonville...

[aubureck]

I live in the 'burbs (North Mandarin) and I would give just about anything to be able to convince my husband to move to Riverside or Springfield.  I love the vibe and the sense of community you get by being in the urban core.  While I do enjoy having a relatively quiet street with little through traffic (especially with young kids playing in the front yard)...I would love to have a more walkable neighborhood.

At least I am a 5 minute walk from San Jose and being able to access several restaurants in the immediate area...its a step in the right direction...

[Tacachale]

No kids of my own, but when we have them we plan on living in an urban neighborhood.

A lot of this "city" versus "suburbs" talk is a false dichotomy. Anywhere you go there are "rougher" and "nicer" city environments just as there are rougher and nicer suburban environments. Avondale and Grand Park are very different urban areas; Ponte Vedra Beach and Sin City are very different suburban areas.

For me, I'll always prefer an urban area to a relatively comparable suburban area. I grew up in Neptune Beach, which isn't really "urban", but the town is pretty walkable and bikeable, with easy access to the parks, the beach, the library, etc. I consider those qualities to have greatly enhanced my childhood. I want those kinds of qualities for my kids, and they're just not something you can find in most suburbs.

[simms3]

Thanks, Simms, every day I get to improve my scanning skills going through your posts.  BTW, as a 'single, educated, white male' how is you have such strong opinions on raising kids in an urban environment, when you said yourself that your own parents sheltered you from such 'hard living'?

I don't think Jacksonville is a bad place to raise kids.  I live in Cedar Hills, but during the school year, my son (12) gets plenty of opportunity to grow up in an urban environment. 

I'll preface by saying I wasn't a huge fan of my own idea at first, but through the past year, I'm feeling like I made the right choice. 

He goes to the magnet school at Ribault and has to take JTA from Lem Turner to DT to Home.  In the course of the past year, he has met quite a few kids his own age, from other neighborhoods, that are in the same situation and it's only made him a better person - not some drug-addled pre-teen that Simms likes to refer to, but I guess if you take the movie 'Kids' at face value, then you should probably shouldn't watch 'Basketball Diaries', because, you know, you'll start thinking that all the catholic school kids like to get wasted before games and snort coke and write poetry.   Please, for the love of God, don't watch, 'Above the Rim'. 

Sorry, tangent.

Made him a better person....   He can get around in this city without the need for a car (read - driver), now.  He's observant enough that when we're driving around, he knows enough about the bus system to know which lines go where.  He catches the school bus, to my office, then he catches a city bus to DT, then he has options.  He can go to Hemming and the Public Library with his DT friends and wait for me to get out of work or he can go straight home to hang out in the 'burbs with the friends he has there - and then he has his chores.

Living in an urban environment makes him a well adjusted, adaptable kid, Simms, not an addict.  And the problems that you're having with your neighbors, I bet he wouldn't.  He'd be comfortable talking to them in the elevator or in the hallway instead of cowering in the corner and feeling some perceived, non-existent threat. 

As a parent, again, I wasn't keen on the idea at first, but he had to get to and from school with 2 working parents.  But with a cellphone with GPS, tracking your kids whereabouts isn't left up to a call from a payphone anymore, so that helps.  And it makes me really proud when we're together out and about and I don't feel the need to hold his hand to cross the street. 

Does your mom or dad still do that, Simmsy?

Thanks for this, NRW.

Exactly.

But Simms has been on quite a journey himself over the past few years----you can see the changes (all for the better) and the mind expansion just by reviewing his posting history.

Some people seem to confuse total dependancy and ignorance about the world around them as a positive, which they often call "sheltered'.  But I think you do your child a disservice when you make them helpless.

But thats just a personal opinion.  I prefer my smart, hardy, witty child who knows how to create solutions and get them approved over the helpless sort that sit around wide eyed and insensate waiting for parental guidance before peeing in an unapproved toilet.

Thanks, and I think this thread has gotten off on multiple tangents and all original points lost.

One, I think two of my points have been that one can't generalize that "urban" environments are better for raising kids than other environments and secondly, oh where to begin.

Second, I think I've also simultaneously discounted anything in Jax as urban to the way I was referring to urban.  Springfield isn't even the densest, most walkable neighborhood in Jax (probably Riverside), and yet each of those neighborhoods are still 90+% single family residential, many houses with yards and front porches.  Come on...that's not really "urban".

Thirdly, NWR, you're all up in arms that I have somehow insulted your urban neighborhood and existence when you essentially live in a suburb: Cedar Hills.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jun-suburban-jacksonville-exploring-cedar-hills

I grew up closer to downtown than you did and I grew up in Ortega!  Geez.  LoL.  I went to Episcopal and preppy sheltered me actually took the bus home a few times, occasionally to satisfy my own curiosity and desire to feel like I lived in a city.  There is really no reason for you to have gotten all worked up and if you truly did read the convo then you could not possibly have insinuated that I said anyone growing up in "urban" environments is prone to drug abuse.  I think I admitted to having engaged in adult activities in my sheltered suburban existence (albeit closer to DT than you), yet I would not say I "grew up" until the last couple years, and I am still in that process.

Finally, my version of "grow up" is basically a loss of innocense and an entrance into an understanding of the ways of the world.  My experience has led me to observe that those I know who grew up in "urban" environments (we're not talking Jax here) grow up very fast.  That was all I said to begin with, and I believe it to be true.  I notice a sort of innocense about smaller town people, suburban people that I cannot really distinguish in big city people, young or old.  I think there are parents out there who do prefer that their kids can remain "kids" until 18+, even if they do get in some trouble, and it's just hard to keep your kids "kids" when they're growing up in a very fast-paced adult environment.  There is a reason most "urban" areas are relatively kid-free (at least the wealthier urban areas where parents have a choice and can get out).

[Tacachale]

^It's a problem of definition. You're defining "urban" or "city" in an excessively restrictive way that clearly was not intended by the original poster. I don't think people assume your definition when they hear "urban" any more than they jump to "East St. Louis" when they hear "suburbs".

[simms3]

^^^True.  Again, perceptions are different for those with different situations.  I think most consider Jax a family friendly town *because* it's not some overcrowded fast-paced urban jungle.  I am a bit surprised that someone who lived in Brooklyn would use urban and Jax/Springfield in the same sentence.  "Trying to replicate the experience" is a reasonable request, but the least dense area of Brooklyn towards the east is still probably over 20,000 ppsm and Springfield, 1 sq. mi. if that, is probably 5,000? 6,000 ppsm?  The area around 5 Points is probably approaching 7,000-8,000 ppsm if I had to guess (20-30 square blocks at most), but maybe someone has Census data?

"In the city" for Jax could mean San Marco, Avondale, Ortega and San Jose...some of the highest end "most reputable" family friendly areas.  Not trying to exclude Springfield, Riverside or other areas, but they don't have a citywide "family-friendly" reputation.  Every neighborhood in Jax is predominantly single-family residential + yard + front porch.  It's not like people are crammed in anywhere, and to take the area around 5 Points, or downtown's towers, I bet you those are the least kid-populated areas in town.

Now take sunbelt cities/modern cities that either already have or are developing very dense cores (i.e. Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, San Diego) and you're not seeing a mass of families with kids moving in from the burbs.  You're seeing a mass of young professionals, students, artists, foreigners, businessmen who need pads, single flight attendants/pilots, the gays if they're not already there, and EMPTY NESTERS.  Of course there are some families with kids who move in, and these urban areas are expensive so they keep out riff raff and end up being very safe, but they're still not viewed as "kid-friendly" areas.

In Atlanta there are several very large "Springfields" with old homes and apartments, and these areas have been gentrified very rapidly in the past 10 years.  Because these areas are mostly single-family homes with yards and porches, this is where the families with kids have moved into the city.  Not Midtown.  Not Inman Park Village.  Not the Westside.  Not downtown.  And these areas are literally light years ahead of Springfield in terms of revitalization.  There aren't crack houses and vacant lots anymore, literally anywhere, and a couple of the neighborhoods have gotten to be *very* expensive (like $650K and up for family-sized house).