Having kids? Reconsider moving to the suburbs.
You’re ready to start a family, so what do you do? Move to the suburbs, buy a car, a dog, a lawnmower (better have a nicer lawn than the neighbours) and you are set. A safe suburban neighbourhood with good schools, privacy and a place for your kids to play.
A place for your kids to play.
That’s going to be the main issue to discuss today; do suburbs really create a place for children to play? You might be scratching your head right now; suburbs are the childrearing capital of North America.
Indeed, the multitude of children is a defining feature for many suburbs, says University of Alberta professor Rob Shields. Job prospects lure families to the area; and the prospect of backyards, affordable homes and safe streets lure them into the suburbs (CBC, 2012)
And this isn’t just anecdotal, we can look at the data from my hometown, a suburb of Toronto.
As you can see, the three most prominent groups in Oakville are 40–44, 45–49 and 50–54. If we look at when people have children in Canada (average being around 31.3 for women), these three groups would have children around the ages of 8–23. So the demographic trends pass an eye test.
Walking around the central neighbourhoods of large cities, one might get the impression that most residents are couples without children. That impression would not be wrong. For example, in Montréal in 2001, only 38% of households in high-density central neighbourhoods had a child aged 18 or under. The corresponding proportion was 58% in low-density peripheral neighbourhoods at least 20 kilometres from the city centre. (Statistics Canada , 2008)
So how many kids live in a neighbourhood?
That’s a good question. I’m going to use two approaches, a top down and bottom up to try to get a decent estimate on how many kids in the same age range can play together.
Top Down — Looking at all of Oakville
Oakville has around 13,000 kids between 5 to 9 years old with around 100 square kilometres of residential land. This gives us around 130 kids who are between 5–9 years old per square kilometer.
Now let’s figure out how many potential friends they can have. We’ll assume that there are roughly the same number for each age, and pick an average 8 year old.
Let’s assume they’ll only be friends with other kids who are one year older and younger (7–9) which gives us 130*0.6 = 78 potential friends/km².
Let’s assume kids only share interests with half of the other kids, independent of gender. 78* 0.5 = 39 potential friends/km²
Let’s assume kids are only free to play half the days/times, because they have other activities and differing schedules. 39* 0.5 = 20 potential friends/km² (We’ll round up)
If gender becomes an issue (because boys/girls have cooties) then 10 potential friends/km²
So after some very sophisticated math, we estimate that there are 10 kids who could be an 8 years old’s friend per square kilometer. Which would give us a similar population density as the 16th least densely populated country in the world, Bolivia.
So … not too many potential friends.
But people typically cluster, let’s take a look at another approach.
What about near an elementary school?
Bottom Up — Looking at a specific neighbourhood
Let’s look at neighbourhood with two elementary schools in Oakville.
Near two elementary schools, there should be plenty of kids. Let’s assume every other house has two students between grade 1–8 (a family with two kids).
This area is roughly a square kilometer. We have around 675 houses, so around 675 kids.
(As a reference the two schools, Heritage Glenn and St Bernadette have 676 students, and ~400, respectively, with the zoning being larger than the displayed area. So 675 seems reasonable)
Using the same principles as above, let’s look at the numbers for an 8 year old.
Let’s assume they’ll only be friends with other kids who are one year older or younger (7–9) which gives us 675*0.375 = 253 potential friends/km².
Let’s assume kids are only share interests with half of the other kids, independent of gender. 253* 0.5 = 127 potential friends/km²
Let’s assume kids are only free to play half the days/times, because they have other activities and differing schedules. 253* 0.5 = 63 potential friends/km² (We’ll round down this time)
If gender becomes an issue (because boys/girls have cooties) then 32 potential friends/km²
So between 10–32 kids to play within a square kilometre.
But how far will a kid walk to play with friends?
Or rather how far will their parents let them walk.
If 15 minutes then it would take around 750m for a younger kid (if we account that roads are not birds view). If the kids meet in the middle, say at a park, all 10–32 can come out to play.
Most parents wouldn’t want their 8 year old to walk that far away from home.
10 minutes? At 500 meters apart, all 10–32 can still come out to play.
5 minutes walk? At 250 meters apart, that’s 39% of the area covered or 4–12 other kids.
So within a 5 minute walk you can play a game of 4 square. Maybe a soccer game.
But walking isn’t the only limitation
This piece would mean one thing 20 or even 10 years ago, but times have changed. Children had the choice of tv, a couple video games or playing with their friends. So playing with friends sometimes was a necessity to escape boredom. Today, kids have Minecraft, Youtube and Fortnite.
Why bother walking 10 minutes when in 10 seconds you can get a strong shot of dopamine into your system? Why bother meeting in person when you can call your friend from around the world and play as a strong, science fiction character? The outdoors are messy, rainy and don't let you restart if you lose.
But what about school activities and extracurriculars?
Schools and organized activities are great to make friends and gain skills, but require external organization. Parents, clubs running, driving (lot’s of driving in suburbs) all limit a kid’s ability just to play. And when everything but the activity itself is taken care by someone else, what do kids learn?
Let’s look at some unstructured play and see what kids learn?
“Hey do you want to play some soccer at the park?” Sales.
“Hey you just moved in, let’s go play on the swings” Cold Calling.
“Let’s pick teams, Jen and Mike you’re with me, Alex and Sean you’re with Bobby” Project Management.
“Let’s build a fort tonight!” Engineering.
“There are some cool bugs in the park, let’s go look” Biology.
“Rolling down a hill” Fun.
All with parents gazing from a distance with minimal work.
So what’s the problem?
In our scenarios we estimated 10–32 kids to play with. Some areas may have less, some may have more. But kids are picky. Growing up, if you could be friends with 10 kids in your neighbourhood, you were popular. Realistically you’ll have fewer than 10 kids to play with in your part of suburbia.
As technology continues to evolve and compete for children's’ (and adults’) attention, we must not forget about spontaneous, outdoor play. It will grow more and more important to make it as simple as possible for kids to meet friends by themselves and explore the world. We’ll have stronger kids, less tired parents, and fewer demands to buy in game purchases.
