Due to a recent row in city hall, Toronto is discussing the relative merits of raising children in the city versus raising them in the suburbs. On the side of the suburbs were two brutal shootings. Supporting kids in the city, diversity:
So I hold no aspersions that small towns or suburbs are necessarily safer than cities. But, more importantly, I believe the benefits of bringing up our son Emile downtown vastly outweigh the fears stemming from these recent acts of senseless violence.
I’ve met small-town folks who can’t imagine the horrors of living in Toronto, much less downtown. But what they don’t see is that their own life experience is limited by homogeneity.
We don't live live in downtown Baltimore for several reasons. First, we don't work there. Second, there are not enough amenities to outweigh the costs. None of the reasons involve diversity. Unlike Toronto, the majority of our diverse areas are actually suburbs.
And those costs do include crime. Here is your obligatory Baltimore murder map. But that is a type of crime that didn't enter our consciousness. When we did live downtown, our house was broken into while we slept upstairs. My car was hit once. Our roommate was mugged. That is on top of the number of times we were accosted by random nonsense while simply trying to get through the day.
The suburbs are not easy. We spend incredible time in our cars and tending our yard. But the city is going to have to present some really good reasons to come back in - better than happy cooing diversity - to get our kids back in the fold.
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