Ep 14: Family-Friendly Urbanism with Louis Thomas

In most of the U.S., cities are for singles, roommates, and childless couples, and the suburbs are for raising kids. That’s not true of much of the rest of the world, and perhaps the nearest example of family-friendly urbanism can be found just a few miles to the north, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Vancouver’s under-15 population fell by one percent citywide between 1996 and 2016, but in downtown specifically, its youth population nearly tripled. Louis Thomas, lecturer at Georgetown University and a parent himself, joins us this week to discuss the history, policies, and social infrastructure that have enabled this incredible shift, and how those lessons might translate to other cities and urban cores across North America.

Show notes:

• Thomas, L. L. (2021). Committed and “Won Over” Parents in Vancouver’s Dense Family-Oriented Urbanism. Journal of the American Planning Association, 87(2), 239-253.
• Karsten, L. (2015). Middle-class childhood and parenting culture in high-rise Hong Kong: On scheduled lives, the school trap and a new urban idyll. Children's Geographies, 13(5), 556-570.
• Karsten, L. (2015). Middle-class households with children on vertical family living in Hong Kong. Habitat International, 47, 241-247.
• Yuen, B., Yeh, A., Appold, S. J., Earl, G., Ting, J., & Kurnianingrum Kwee, L. (2006). High-rise living in Singapore public housing. Urban Studies, 43(3), 583-600.
• Thomas, L. L. (2020). From childless tower to child-full density: families and the evolution of vancouverism. Planning Perspectives, 1-23.
• Ley, D. (1980). Liberal ideology and the postindustrial city. Annals of the Association of American geographers, 70(2), 238-258.
• City of Vancouver Planning Department. (1978). Housing Families at High Densities.
• Fishman, R. (2008). Bourgeois utopias: The rise and fall of suburbia. Basic books.