Editor’s note: I’d move my kids out of town too with the cost of living in NYC

People marvel at the fact that I was blessed with four children and supported them on a reporter’s salary. Well, truth be told, I was also fortunate their mother stayed at home to raise them, and that their grandmother and other relatives were constantly around to help watch the kids and to pick them up from school and take them to activities. And for full disclosure, I had packed up and left New York City and relocated to Florida, where my salary, credit cards, and occasional financial support from my parents covered the rent on a house, car payments, food and all the expenses attached to a growing family. We couldn’t make that happen in New York City in 1992. And it’s clear a lot of families still can’t make that happen in 2024. 

Gothamist last week reported that New York families with children are increasingly weighing whether to leave the city because of rising child care and housing costs. The story cited a Fiscal Policy Institute report that found families with kids age 6 or younger are twice as likely to leave the city, compared to those without. The report also noted that while households with kids make up 14% of the city’s population, they represent 30% of those leaving. I resisted the narrative that New Yorkers were leaving the city, especially from those who proclaimed the city was “dead,” after the pandemic began subsiding. But the city’s lack of affordability has been a constant in my lifetime, and with this latest news even more depressing for me to know that in the same shoes as these parents, I too would probably make the move all over again.