I would absolutely trade living space for the culture and lifestyle of the city. For me, it's a little different for the midwest because the suburbs tend to be a LOT more conservative and country-like than in other cities on the coasts where people move to afford life, rather than "get away from the city & crime". But then again, everyone has their own reasons.
I have considered moving to the suburbs because of the high crime rates Kansas City (my neighborhood) has had in the past few months, but I could never do it. I am actually going to move closer downtown!

I'd rather live in the city than have kids :-)

I'll stay in the city, or a dense small town, for the rest of my life. Nothing can beat the culture within walking distance.

I made the reverse move - from Plano to Downtown Dallas and I went from HATING "Dallas" to loving it...and all it took was moving 20 miles south. Granted, I have more space than any of the folks in the NYTimes article and I don't think that I could live in a one bedroom with 2 kids...but I think that's where you just need to get creative.

I would certainly trade space for community and culture. No question.

http://embritadesign.blogspot.com

i'd rather live in the city and have kids and have less stuff!

The man in the photo appears to be having some regrets.

Making small spaces such as these work is what AT has been all about and hopefully continues to be all about. I loved this article (although some of the space solutions, at least in the pix, weren't all that clever, just jammed together).

The articles did not mention if the parents were sending their children to public schools. The couples looked quite well off and not typical of most families with children.

My daughter and I talk about her youth in the inner city. It was very hard on her; it was not fun dealing with gangs inside the school and homeless on the streets. She had more freedom to walk and better resources when she moved to her father's suburb. Children should come first. If I ihad had the opportunity, I would have lived in a safe and pleasant suburb with a good school system. My daughter and I could have gone to a well stocked library, a park without homeless, and a school system with books.

Cities are great for the childless and well-off, but they are not good for families who rely on public schools and libraries.

I live in a city (DC) and I love being in the midst of everything, not having a car, being able to walk or metro everywhere. I don't have kids, however, so that wasn't part of my consideration. I've lived in non-urban areas too, which I also loved (liberal, non-urban areas) (ok, not my tiny hometown), but I've lived the majority of my adult life in urbanity.

I live in LA (Hollywood) in a one bedroom with a one year old. From my point of view, urban LA is much different than SF or NYC in terms of being child-friendly, especially for those of us without a car. For many people I know that move out of LA once they have kids, it is as much about amenities as it is space.

I grew up in the suburbs. Sixteen years of suburban living satisfied my recommended lifetime allowance, I am certain. I'm not convinced growing up there was really that much safer than anywhere else. My Mayberry-looking suburban whitey-flighty neighborhood had its alcoholics, its child-molesters, its grope-y SOBs at school, its domestic violence... I could go on.

Where do school shootings tend to take place? Tediously generic suburbs where teenagers are isolated, oppressed, and bored.

We just moved (with our 3-year-old) from LA to suburban Orange County for work purposes. I miss our "city life" so much that we drive back every chance we get. It's only an hour away, but it seems like another state, culturally.

I've never not lived in a big city in my life and this has been the hardest transition ever. All the seemingly trivial things that got me through my day -- for example, a good cup of non-Starbucks coffee and being able to walk to said cup of coffee (along with the post office, the newsstand, the library, locally-owned eateries, etc.) -- are lost to me. My daughter sees ZERO cultural diversity on a daily basis (a strain on my soul, since she's bi-racial and stands out wherever we go). And now, just to run tedious errands, I'm in my car on the freeway ALL the time...you know, the way non-Angelenos erroneously think people in L.A. are anyway.

Sure, I don't know anyone else's individual considerations, but I just want to scream to anyone considering the move...it's not worth it! Go to a street festival! Go play at Shane's Inspiration! Get your kid a NextGen membership at LACMA! Hike through Griffith Park, then get muffins at The Trails! Play bongos at the Hollywood Farmer's Market! Do it because you can...or, just do it for me!

Okay. My exclamation marks and I are out of here.

But which suburb? Pasadena is a town, Long Beach is a town, Encino is a sprawl, Van Nuys is a sprawl, Toluca Lake is a neighborhood. Los Angeles is a kaleidoscope of neighborhoods, suburbs, exurbs, rural areas, etc.

Zero cultural diversity in OC? You must be on Balboa and never leave the island, or rather your house. Sorry, but I find that hard to believe. There's Latin, Chinese, Korean, Persian, and that's just sitting in front of the fountains at Fashion Island.

I'm single and HATED the So CA suburbs!!! way too cookie cutter (houses, people, cars - - everything) HOWEVER.... I think that if I had kids I would go with an option other than a one bedroom apt. in the heart of the city. seems like there's got to be an area somewhere in the middle of cookie cutter and downtown.

And just to beat a dead horse--WeHo is largely single people, Pasadena is families. Halloween might not be all that outrageous (you know to go to Milan in South Pasadena for the best decorations, right?) but New Years Eve, camped out on the parade route--what can compare? That's a rite of passage for a whole lot of teens in the SGV.

And you can walk all over Pasadena, and take public transport that actually works, unlike LA's bus system. Pasadena's a great town, esp. for kids. It's not a sprawling suburb with no center, like Sherman Oaks.

This would be a good question for Chicago, being in the midwest... such a difference between the vibe in the city and some of the "ticky-tacky houses all in a row" suburbs. As sleggo mentioned.

There is a central city in Los Angeles, it's called Downtown Los Angeles. And by living in Pasadena, you are closer to the city center than West Hollywood. You can even get there from Pasadena via the metro. By car it's 15-mins to museums, Disney Hall, the art walk and more. Pasadena is one of the most beautiful and culturally interesting neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I don't live in Pasadena but I'm a native Angeleno.

We had our son in Seattle and enjoyed five months of the family feeling of Queen Anne and the excitement of downtown before we moved. We were in a one-bedroom and had two closets in the whole apartment, which made keep things organized a little tricky. As much as I miss the great walks along Queen Anne Ave. and the progressive mindset of most families we knew, its been so nice to have a two bedroom home with a huge yard in Springfield, MO. We are close enough to downtown and the college neighborhoods that we get a small taste of city life and have searched out the same kinds of experiences and people here that we enjoyed in the Northwest.

If living in the city were more affordable for our family, we would've stayed but we're making the most of it in the Midwest.

We made the move from City to Suburb just recently. I do miss the culture. But unless you've got $20-30K to drop for private school every year, there really is no comparison for us. Our first, second and third considerations for where to move were Schools, schools, schools.

I just watched a documentary on PBS called "Where Do The Children Play?" which explored both city kids and suburban kids and their surroundings affect them mentally and physically. It seemed to me that parents were more afraid to let their children play outside in the suburbs than in the city, which affected their health and their perceptions of other people. They did an experiment where groups of kids build their idea of their city around them. While the city kids got together to work in groups, the suburban kids worked alone. Also notable: the city kids made happy little people and placed them in and around the buildings and spaces, whereas the suburban children made parking lots and malls.

What I got out of it was that the suburbs are more likely to breed bored, lonely and culturally narrow children.

Here's the link. It was an interesting watch: http://www.wfum.org/childrenplay/index.html

I can't live anyplace without a lobby.

and this is exactly what i love about L.A. I have a house, but I'm not in the 'burbs.

From a Midwest perspective I prefer city or inner ring suburb, anything beyond that is mcmansions, strip malls, and unwalkable.

I used to live in DC (Columbia Heights neighborhood). Three years ago, I moved to Alexandria City, 7.5 miles outside of DC. (Does that count as a suburb?) Although I miss the energy and diversity of CH, as an avid cook, I do like the easier access to better grocery stores in Alexandria.

I just moved into an apartment in Pasadena after living in a city that was more stereotypically suburban (although Monterey Park is still pretty unique for a suburb). I think I echo a few people in saying that I don't think it's the most offensively suburban place that you could have chosen. I was just marveling how much it made think of New York when I visited last summer. Most of what I need is within walking distance, with the exception of the supermarkets, and even then, there are a few corner grocery stores in some residential neighborhoods I've driven through. The thing about suburbs that I don't like -- lack of personality with little to no pedestrian and public transportation options -- is not really true of Pasadena (yet, I guess). And I think you can get an even better balance if you choose to live in an multi-family housing (apartments) over getting a house within a "suburban" city, because most are located closer to commercial areas.

This has been the most fascinating read; I also read the comments on the original post. I've lived in and around 5 major cities in the past 20 years and have spent months visiting other places. I currently live in LA (fourth time - and I'm never leaving California again) but was raised in NY, in Westchester and always worked in NYC. No kids.

You can't even compare living in LA, whether its downtown, Westside, whatever, to living in any other major city. It's just a different world. And a really good one. Currently, I work in Century City and live East, maybe a bit too East for some people, but it is a brief 30 minute drive along my back roads secret route (my commute in NY was a lovely train ride along the Hudson but during the snowy/icy winters it could be - door to door - 1 hour, not much different than a freeway in August, particularly the 405 on a Wed or Thurs night.) The weather is better here.

I'm used to living in a multi-ethnic community so a burb with a bland group has bored me and if I had kids, I'd rather them live with all sorts of people to prepare them for reality. My friends who have moved to the real burbs have become soft in many ways and a bit fatter. I can't walk in my neighborhood at night (its nice but I just couldn't...) but who walks at night anyway? It takes me 10 minutes to get to any store (by car) I could possibly want and I have a small cottage, a garden of my own, the neighbors are really nice and I easily get to Hollywood, downtown, the museums, all the restaurants anyone could want to get to, and most of my friends are in Santa Monica. It's never a problem. The beach is, oddly, not that far away for a weekend drive and Santa Monica has a great farmers market, as do several other nearby areas. Once, in NYC, it took me 2 hours in a taxi from mid-town to SoHo (I had things I couldn't take on a train).

Real estate in Southern California is high, let's face it, but no higher than a one bedroom apartment in NYC. Everything takes money, its just a question of where you want to spend it. Train, car, bus, it all uses energy. So for me, personally, its about time and where I want to spend it. It's not on a freeway or on a bus or train. I found a nice little compromise. It seems as though no one works and lives in the same area. Interesting, aren't we?

**I can't use public transportation and don't want to because I commuted in NY for a combined 20 years and after awhile, enough. I like my car.

And if you can live IN NYC in a one bedroom, raise a few kids and not grow tired of walking down Madison Avenue at 6 p.m. and have everyone smack you in the shoulders as everyone rushes by and not have it bother you, well, more power to you. For me, LA is right in the middle of chaos city and the burbs, no matter what part of it you live in. I think our wants and needs just chance depending on what life phase we're in. I love NYC (except for mid-town at 6 p.m....) and I love LA, but I could never really compare the two. And what I liked at 20 isn't what I liked at 40 and certainly not what I like now, but every place is wonderful in its own way....

I don't think anyone can say one is certainly better than the other. There are so many factors that come into play including IF you have kids, education, location, jobs, surroundings, etc. One thing that drives me nuts is either side saying they have the "better" life. Who's to say, except yourself?!

We live in Orange County, gasp and grimace if you'd like, but it's what you make of it. We enjoy many things about it, including quick access to the beach, great trails for mountain biking, good schools and our jobs are close. Close jobs and less traffic mean more time together as a family. OC is 1/2 way between LA and SD, so we can easily visit the larger cities without living there.

It's not my "ideal" house to live in, but it works for us right now. Although my kids live in a mostly caucasian neighborhood, there is diversity - I think ALL of Southern California is diverse compared to many places in the US.

I have the same type living situation as MoxieThunder. Best of both worlds!

I grew up in a family oriented suburb and although I would not choose to live there as an adult, it was a great community to grow up in and still is today.

JacksonMarie - Couldn't agree more! By the time I move back to LA I'll be in my late 30s, as opposed to mid 20s the first time I lived there. I'm now looking at little cottages within the MidWilshire area (not to raise kids) but apartments are fine for me too.

Having grown up in a very suburban area along a busy road with no sidewalks, but a big backyard and woods to play in, I treasured my time in LA and how I felt part of the area instead of just living there. I felt connected to the little stores I shopped in and the kids I passed playing on the sidewalk and even the stupid ice cream van (a true rarity where I grew up).

And you're right, you really can't compare LA, or even SoCal, with anywhere else.

The Minneapolis/Saint Paul area is home to a plethora of livable semi-urban neighborhoods, with sidewalks, bike lanes, and mature trees. I live within walking distance of a movie theater, non-chain restaurants, shops and parks. Crime is low, and public schools not bad. The houses range from bungalows to mansions with price points just as varied.

People with children can choose where to live without having to be crammed into a tiny apartment.

Kinda cold for a few months, though.

I think I fit where catrobmar is - semi-urban. I wouldn't trade it for the city - but it's practically like being there. Better school systems outside of cities and much much safer for children. Plus you get more space for the money - most kids would love to have a bedroom, not just a curtained off space in a living room.