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SE’s Andrew Beveridge in the NY Times on Trends in NYC’s Child Population

SUNDAY, FEB 24, 2013

Things move fast in New York, unless you're trying to sign your kid up for something.  In the New York Times article "Born to Wait: For Parents, a Waiting List for Nearly Everything," Soni Sangha explores the increase in over-filled classes and long waiting lists for children's programs.  The story includes data and analysis from Social Explorer's Andrew Beveridge.

If waiting in line in the predawn of a January morning for science camp registration sounds crazy, you do not have a New York City child born after 2004. For those children and their parents, especially in the neighborhoods of brownstone Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan and the Upper West Side, not getting into activities, classes, sports teams — and even local schools — has become a way of life. If every generation must have its own designation, call theirs Generation Waiting List…

Sangha goes on to cite Beveridge and include a map highlighting the growth of the youth population in different pockets of the city.

At first blush, the waiting lists are a little surprising, given that in the city there were 7 percent fewer children 9 and younger in 2011 than there were in 2000, according to census findings. Indeed, every borough has seen a decrease in children in that age range.

But the distribution of children is highly uneven, and some neighborhoods, especially those deemed “family friendly,” have seen population explosions that outpace the general population growth, according to an analysis of census data by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College.

In Battery Park City-Lower Manhattan, the 9 and younger population has grown by 129 percent over the last decade; uptown, the Lincoln Square neighborhood has seen a 56 percent growth.

In Brooklyn, Park Slope had a 2 percent increase, and its more affordable neighbor, Windsor Terrace, grew by 11 percent. The mostly Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood saw a 25 percent increase.

“The people having kids these days, they are a lot more well off,” Professor Beveridge said, “so those parents are much more likely to have kids who are clients” — of summer camps, music schools and the like.

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