The preceding post, Who Should Live in Whitewater?, was about immigration. Here’s a second question, a bit more specific: which homeowners for Whitewater?
One hears repeatedly that out city could use more families with children. I don’t disagree: it would help our public schools to have a stable, or growing, school-age population.
Here’s where I depart from others’ plans to attract more families with children: I believe that the best program to attract families is one that invites all prospective homeowners who’ll show concern and pride for their properties.
Unmarried couples, married couples without children, married couples with children, unmarried couples with children, relatives sharing a house, houses with tenants: demand from among those who’ll care for their properties should be the principal concern. Each of these kinds of prospective homeowners could advance that goal.
Efforts to target existing families with children have been mostly ineffectual, are wrongly biased, and are misguided (in any event). One knows these efforts have been ineffectual as the fundamental composition among all Whitewater homeowners hasn’t changed much over the last decade. They’re also biased in a way I think wrong: government shouldn’t be thinking about one kind of homebuyer over another. It’s enough to have a buyer who can manage his or her own house properly.
In fact, it’s more than enough to have buyers like that: it’s a community gain. When new homewoners of whatever situation share a common desire to improve their homes, Whitewater becomes attractive to other buyers, including those with children.
The way to get more families with children to find Whitewater desirable is to stop focusing on attracting only those families, and commit instead to attracting anyone who’ll be a good steward of his property.