Interesting article "Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children" found in the NY Times. The article talks about how vibrant urban cities are not able to attract young families with children, due to the high cost of housing.
Some snippets:
- Scottsdale, Ariz., a fast-growing Phoenix suburb, lost 571 students last year. San Jose closed three schools last year and expects to close three more soon.
- Between 2003 and 2004, only six states had an increase in their elementary school population, the census bureau reported in March.
- Even in San Francisco, where officials are preparing for another round of school closings amid a projected decline of 4,000 students in the next five years, city officials are aggressively marketing the city and its schools to young families.
- "If you took immigrants out of the equation, the United States would be like the rest of Europe," said Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a public policy research organization in Washington.
It reminds me of The Next Christendom:
"The stagnation of Northern and particularly European populations will be one of the most significant facts of the twenty-first century."
My question really, though, what kind of impact does this have on urban youth ministry?
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