Baby New Yorker

I discovered a new word this weekend: Exurb. It's like a suburb, but further away. Like when cookie cutter housing developments crop up in the middle of nowhere, beyond the traditional suburban radius of a city. My sister recently relocated to one of these, 30 miles north of Tampa. It's a new breed of Frontierism. But replace covered wagons with UHaul trucks. One of the ideas is to create communities where housing is affordable enough that parents can take a more active part in their child's lives. I know my sister was attracted to the idea of saving $500K on a house. But problems can arise when these communities are placed in towns that aren't ready for the population explosion. More schools need to be built, wider roads need to be laid down. You've got to hand it to Starbucks though. They were there before the houses were even finished.

It feels like a lot of people think that you can't or shouldn't raise a child in New York City. With what you hear on the news, why wouldn't you think that? They make it sound like if my child is a product of the local schools they'll have a crack pipe in one hand and list of misspelled vocabulary words in the other. I used to be very proud of my NYC public education and would tell people how I didn't have any problems. Then I read in New York Magazine last month how there were a few public schools that rival the private ones in their quality. PS 59, the one my sister and I went to, was on that list. But to sound fancy they call themselves the Beekman Hill School. D'oh! There goes my case. I personally know of only one other native New Yorker my age that was born here and still lives here. Even the kids from PS 59 have moved out.

You can save for a home, save for college, save for retirement, pay down your debts but not all at the same time. So what do you do? Stay in NYC and swallow the cost of living here with under-educated, but cultured and stimulated children or go to a place where the local NRA screens Red Dawn every Saturday? Wherever it is, I hope they have trees.