Which US cities have the highest percentage of middle class families living in cores?
 

The reason I am leaving Canada out is because it's obvious that nearly all Canadian major cities have families or middle class folks living in the city center and surrounding neighborhoods.

For the US, unfortunately it's either very rich or very poor people living say, "downtown". You don't have lots of children attending nice public schools in downtown areas. As mentioned, Canada/Australia/Europe overall is unique in that it's not just uber rich people who live centrally. I loved that when I lived in Copenhagen, you'd see normal every day families raising their kids in high density row homes or 8 story apartment buildings. Does this really even exist in the US?

Let's say for the purpose of this thread, "core" is defined by downtown and then immediate close knit neighborhoods that the average American would consider "urban" and not your typical Chick-Fil-A/KMart strewn suburb.

Are you looking for urban cores and inner neighborhoods that have lots of kids, or are middle class, or both?

Many cities not on the coasts would qualify.

Pre-war Milwaukee, Madison, Omaha, Kansas City, and the Twin Cities are largely middle class. The Twin Cities also have a lot of middle-class neighborhoods with loads of kids and strong schools in the core.

For smaller and/or less urban metros, many parts of the west qualify, especially SLC, Albuquerque, Boise, Spokane....

while some of those cities you mentioned hide vast areas of poverty within large city limits (particularly kansas city), even the higher end areas are middle class by west coast standards, excepting areas of say the country club plaza in like kansas city and parts of minneapolis. even the "luxury" loft areas in midwestern downtowns are middle class in character/income...it's definitely a midwestern trait.

Although pricier, I'd also argue that Seattle and Portland fall under this. Neither city really has the "parents with school age kids flee for the suburbs" dynamic that you see in so many other metros. Not coincidentally, they're also two of the cities which had the least white flight in the mid to late 20th century.

Of course, in virtually any city I'm aware of the vast majority of "family friendly middle class" neighborhoods would not really be definable as urban core. The most urban are generally basically "streetcar suburb" level density, with the peak urbanity neighborhoods in every city typically having less children.

Then I'll propose to you a non-obvious choice--San Francisco--because as near as I can tell there's very little difference between the populations of any of the 4 major "Ecotopian" cities (SF, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver), taking into consideration wage levels and currency variations especially. Although you have to have a steep income to buy a house in SF these days, as in Vancouver, not only do people make a lot but there are lots of people having either rent-controlled apartments or inherited homes or some other situations that allows them to remain in the city and be relatively immune from the current cost of buying. And they may also be immune even from the current property tax rates thanks to Prop. 13.

Beyond that, vast swaths of "west of Twin Peaks" San Francisco (geographically maybe ⅔ of the city when the southern neighborhoods are also included) are full of modest-appearing homes of the city's small business owners, professional couples and others who live a middle class lifestyle and raise their kids these neighborhoods.

Austin has become predominantly upper class downtown (almost all those skyscrapers are residential), and middle to upper class for perhaps five miles out from downtown, although still a patchwork to the east. Further out, there are a lot of marginal looking areas mixed with OK areas. To the southwest through northwest of downtown, it's very affluent for many miles out from downtown. This is sort of a simplistic description, as there are exceptions. For example, there are a ton of homeless in downtown and on street corners all over the city in some affluent areas.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong. Certainly Toronto and Vancouver do not have typical middle class Canadian families living in city cores. It tends to be affluent or subsidized households as in U.S.
How is this meaningfully different from Canada?
I think you're wrong about Europe too. In major European cities, the cores tend to be very affluent, with few regular families and fewer children than the norm. I doubt the profile of residents in the cores of say, Paris, Vienna and Rome, are meaningfully different than those in prime U.S. cities.

Of course you see some kids in such centers. You see lots of kids in Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn too. But still not as common as in some typical McMansion sprawlburb, and the kids in Manhattan will tend to be in affluent or subsidized families.

The Toronto core is dominated by the professional class and also has a significant amount of subsidized housing. The working class and lower middle class live mostly in the suburbs.

You have to take in account that the income diversity that exists in the us does not exist in Europe for example, to the same extent.

Lots of the people living in the innercity of some cities, such as Copenhagen, are considered well-of by their standards.

The gap between poor, working class and middle class could sometimes be hard to define in northern europe especially.

"Income diversity" - that's sure a nice way to say wealth inequality.

One group you'll find as well in many major city cores are people with high "cultural capital" but not high incomes: adjuncts, freelancers, artists etc. They may "normalize" the income distribution but can be hardly be classified as "everyday middle class folk" or whatever.

Good point.

I would think that Sunbelt cities will tend to have more families in the core. These Sunbelt cities tended to grow recently, such as in the last generation or two, so quality housing that is not out of a middle class price range is going to be easier to find. Longer-established cities are going to have a core that's more in demand, thus higher prices, or relatively abandoned, and undesirable for a family.

urban housing in nashville is astronomical compared to its midwestern neighbors. there's so little supply relative to demand for central housing. the overall vibe is in fact less family oriented feeling to me compared to the nearby midwestern cities...lots more recent college grads from indiana type thing...

I don't even think that "urban living for families" exists in most of the Sunbelt at all. There's not really much moderate-density housing. It goes straight from the Downtown area, where the middle-class housing options tend to be recently constructed apartment buildings, to streets dominated by single-family detached houses.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2003...2!8i6656?hl=en

and there's a huge swath of teardowns and gentrification in neighborhoods like this in cities like nashville, but this isn't urban living.

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if you want to find 100% middle class neighborhoods, look to places like this, even though it's not dense by east coast standards and there's certainly denser neighborhoods in st. louis (i just grabbed a quick shot within a much larger area that i know to be classic middle class):

https://goo.gl/maps/CmpZRenh7332

the non-gentrified cop/firefighter/city employee neighborhoods in old line midwestern cities where middle class people have been sending their kids to schools across the street for decades. people who have jet-skis parked in alleys. people who walk down to the parish picnic beer-in-hand with the kids. places with neighborhood corner bars. places with targets that have parking garages...

chicago, cincinnati, minneapolis, st. louis...

Since "urban living" based upon the built environment is subjective, I tend to base the definition on way of life instead.

1. Can you walk to a local traditional business district - via sidewalks - in ten minutes or less?

2. Can a large portion of the public rely on other methods besides a car to get to work (transit, walking, etc)?

If a neighborhood meets those standards, it's an urban neighborhood.

If that's the standard, I don't think someplace like Nashville has any urban neighborhoods excepting the CBD.

A lot of SFR neighborhoods fall within that. I'd include some sort of density standard. There are substantial differences in urbanity at 5,000 per square mile vs. 10,000 or 15,000, all possible in a SFR district.

As for Nashville, the city is so low with non-car modes that the standard seems impossible.

five points (or whatever the oldest part of east nashville is called) takes a crack at it. it also has frame houses built for middle or upper middle class people pushing 1 million dollars.

https://goo.gl/maps/ACF1mkkjeGL2

but the commercial is a bigger mess on the ground than i thought.