Anyone who’s been at home with small children for more than a few days in a row knows the truth–it’s boring as hell.  Despite the popular cultural myth that parenthood (especially motherhood) is an all encompassing blissfest, it actually is sheer drudgery most of the time.  Some of this mythos has fortunately been dispelled by mommy bloggers who tell it like it is, but the fact remains–many new moms and dads who stay at home with their kids are shocked at how boring and isolating it can be. 

This is where a new urbanist neighborhood comes in handy.  Getting kids loaded and unloaded into a car (especially if you have more than one) is a pain in the ass, but if you live in most of suburbia, you have to do this ulcer inducing act multiple times a day because you can’t walk to anything.  In a new urbanist neighborhood, you can toss the kids in a stroller, and walk outside to get a cup of coffee, or buy flowers, or just get outside around other people so you don’t feel so isolated.  Or you can walk easily to a pocket park and let the kids run around or dig in the dirt, greeting neighbors along the way. 

Once the kids get a little older, they can have some freedom kids in a sprawldivision don’t have–they don’t have to rely on mom and dad taxi service to get somewhere interesting.  Older kids in Bradburn can easily walk to get ice cream, to 10 different parks, to school, to stores to buy candy and other sundries.  In an isolated subdivision, kids can’t get anywhere on their own–it’s too dangerous because the place is designed for people in cars, not on foot or bicycles. They can’t get anywhere except another street of endless similar beige houses, this deprives them of the ability to develop some independence and skills they will need as an adult.

Now, there is a caveat the this.  New urbanist neighborhoods are perfect for families IF they contain single family homes.  This isn’t to say that families can’t live happily in townhomes or condos, but the fact is most couples with kids want a single family detatched home with a yard (even a small yard)–the majority of construction in the U.S. housing market is single family homes for a reason: demand.  Many new urbanist neighborhoods contain single family homes, but I’ve noticed lately that many new ones coming up–especially transit oriented developments–have only townhomes and condos, no single family.  While the market needs these too, there should be a balance between these and new urbanist developments that offer single family homes–believe me, people will buy them, and once they experience how great it is living in a new urbanist neighborhood with kids, they won’t ever go back to a sprawldivision.