Why Are Families Staying in the City?

The core of this chapter is to understand why families stay in the inner city today. Interviews with families in Helsinki show that reasons for staying in the city are diverse, but it is obvious that the housing choice made before having children persists after becoming parents. Staying in the city is a way to tackle the sharp divide between life before becoming parents and life with children. Parents closely evaluate how their life would be in suburban environments, and find that the inner city facilitates their day-to-day lives better. Although school choice is typically emphasized in the middle-class housing choice, the chapter argues that it is not specifically addressed during the interviews in Helsinki. Social reproduction, however, rises up more implicitly.