WASHINGTON, D.C.—Mitchell and Yvette Hunter wanted to raise their children in the same Petworth neighborhood where they grew up. Instead, that dream has been deferred.
“That was our plan,” Mitchell Hunter told The Final Call. “I work in D.C., my wife works in D.C., and we love this city, but it is unaffordable for our family. We can find more and better for our family of five in the suburbs.”
The Hunters are not alone. Families are leaving America’s largest cities at a startling rate as the child population plummets, raising urgent questions about housing, family stability, and who gets to share in urban America’s future.
An analysis by The Wall Street Journal of Census Bureau data found that between 2015 and 2024, child populations declined in many U.S. cities with more than 500,000 residents. San Jose saw a 20% drop, Los Angeles a 16% drop, Albuquerque a 15% drop, Portland and San Diego a 14% drop, and Chicago a 13% drop.
The trend extends beyond city limits. From April 2020 to July 2023, roughly 80% of U.S. metropolitan areas lost children under 15, according to the Census Bureau. The New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago metro areas alone lost about 614,000 children, nearly 30% of the national decline.
Falling birth rates explain part of the shift. But families moving away, or being economically pushed out, explain another, more troubling part. The numbers reveal a society where working people can serve a city but increasingly cannot afford to raise children there.
“We love D.C.,” Rosalynn Douglass told The Final Call. She is a nurse; her husband, James, is a construction worker. “This is where we want to live only because we don’t have children. When it’s time to start having babies, I doubt we will be able to afford the city we love. Houses are very expensive, and you don’t get that much for your money.”
Cities for capital, but not for children
Political and business leaders often promote urban “revitalization” through luxury apartments, entertainment districts, and high-end development. But progress cannot be measured by property values alone. A city that attracts wealth while losing children may simply be replacing one population with another.
Housing is central to the crisis. Families need space, good schools, safe recreation, and affordable transportation. In many cities, these necessities have become luxuries.
In 2023, nearly half of U.S. renter households were cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing, according to the Census Bureau. About 30.6% of Black renters were severely burdened, spending more than half their income on rent.
Meanwhile, Brookings Institution researchers found that 50% of Latino middle-class families could not cover basic necessities, compared with 27% of White middle-class families. Black middle-class families also had a lower median income overall.
Under these conditions, leaving is often not a rejection of city life; it is an act of survival.
A heavier burden for Black and Latino families
Black and Latino families confront rising prices with less accumulated wealth, lower incomes, and lower homeownership rates. Redlining, discriminatory lending, urban renewal, and the destruction of Black neighborhoods blocked generations from passing down property. Latino families have similarly faced discrimination, segregation, and displacement.
When neighborhoods become desirable to investors, longtime residents are often treated as obstacles rather than participants. Property taxes and rents rise. Family-sized apartments and local businesses disappear. People who sustained a community through years of neglect are told they can no longer afford to remain.
For Black families, leaving may mean losing cultural institutions, extended-family networks, and historic neighborhoods. A move can offer more space, but it also brings longer commutes, social isolation, and entry into suburbs where discrimination persists.
“I grew up going to the Petworth Library. My family went to Rock Creek Baptist Church. Those memories are dear to me, and I wanted that for my children,” Mr. Hunter said.
“But the average cost of a house in Petworth is close to $850,000. That is beyond our budget. We found a house we can afford; it’s great, but it’s not D.C., which means additional expenses because our social life is still in D.C.”
Latino and immigrant families also face political hostility and immigration enforcement that can disrupt households or discourage access to services. Relocation does not necessarily resolve financial pressure. Families escaping high rents may take on new costs, car payments, gasoline, and tolls. They gain space but lose time together.
What happens when children disappear?
Children sustain schools, libraries, recreation centers, pediatric services, child-care providers, and neighborhood businesses. When their numbers fall, school districts may close or consolidate schools, reducing services and making cities less attractive to the families who remain. Black and Latino neighborhoods, already burdened by disinvestment, often absorb the loss of schools that also function as community anchors.
Research from the Economic Innovation Group found that the under-5 population in large urban counties fell more than 8% between April 2020 and July 2023, nearly twice the national decline. New York City alone lost more than 100,000 children under five.
Births declined faster in large urban counties than in rural ones, while movement toward exurban communities continued even after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A measure of society’s priorities
The population decline of children reveals an economy capable of producing enormous private wealth but unwilling to guarantee the basic conditions needed to sustain families. Officials routinely call families society’s foundation, yet housing policy, wages, child-care costs, school funding, and development decisions often work against them.
Cities must treat affordable, family-sized housing as essential infrastructure, preserving units and protecting tenants. Investment in childcare, schools, clinics, transportation, parks, and living wages must accompany housing policy.
Black and Latino families must have a seat at the table in shaping these policies. A healthy city should be judged by whether teachers, transit workers, nurses, sanitation employees, postal workers, and restaurant workers can establish homes, raise children, and grow old with dignity.
The decline of children is more than a population warning. It is a verdict on priorities. When families must flee to survive, the question is not simply, “Where have the children gone?” It is: What kind of society made it so difficult for them to stay?
