While not directly related to the City of Oklahoma City. The link provides grist for discussion. This is happening in our community, and I can attest to it. The Childless City by Joel Kotkin and Ali Modarres, City Journal Summer 2013 (http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_3_childless-cities.html).

Joel Kotkin is not an empirical scholar by any means and almost always has a radical conservative bend so I'm hesitant to even click on your link and give it a page hit...

I would be disappointed by any fewer than 5 attacks on more credible and established scholars like Richard Florida.

Wouldn't seem to be an issue in OKC. Lots of family friendly programming DT and elsewhere in OKC.

Joel Kotkin is the kind of scholar who'll say you should watch a movie only because it was in the top ten of last week's box office. His natural constituency is site locators scouting for cheap locations. It makes me cringe whenever the chamber cites his work, especially when they call him an urbanist, as they once did in a Velocity mag. He is anything but.

Having said that, any urban place that seeks longevity needs to foster family settlement. If Core to Shore succeeds as a neighborhood, it will be because it was settled by families and cohabitants of every type. Roots and youthful memories need to be established in order to keep generations of families loyal to a place and build an urban (as opposed to suburban) population base.

It's heartening to learn of couples with children living in the inner city core. We have families with children living in our neighborhood as well, but with a twist. I find parallels with some points in the article by virtune of living in the same house for three-plus decades. While anecdotal, I witness one particular scenario playing in a continuous loop.

Our neighborhood is replete with young professionals, who began moving in a little more than two decades ago. They bring a vibrancy and a certain style-of-life that was all but unimaginable when we bought our home in 1982. At that time, there were a few families with children; mostly older folks. The neighborhood has never looked better, nor been stronger, thanks in large part to these young adults.

In some cases these young neighbors begin families. I see many younger children at the neighborhood functions (infant-through-first grade), but very few older children (lower, middle and upper school). The scenario mentioned above goes like this: young couples move into the neighborhood, children come along, the eldest approaches school age, a "for sale" sign goes up on the property, the couple buys a home in the suburbs and the scenario repeats itself. This happens many times, but not all times.

It strikes me as a bit odd, insofar as there are far more educational choices today for my younger neighbors than when my children were being educated. I suppose it takes time for stereotypes to change and young families become aware of their options; but that's what I've witnessed.