In the NYTimes today: Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children.

Of late, my partner and I have been in the market for a house of our own. We were looking for a small house with the following qualities: a large kitchen, space for a garden, an unfinished basement. A house that we could live in, while making structural and aesthetic improvements to it. We wanted a fixer. My partner and I both get a little weak in the knees around power tools, so, you know, it seemed like the right thing to do.

So we looked: north, northeast, and southeast. We were looking for houses in up-and-coming neighborhoods (think: the Alberta Arts District, five years ago, Seven Corners right, uh, now, and SE Gladstone, between 39th and 26th, whose time is coming soon), and with proximity to a friendly, local market (think: People’s, the Alberta Co-op, Daily Grind, Big City, or New Seasons). We were seriously talking about Quality Of Life Issues (think: schools, playgrounds, and Stumptown coffeeshops), and throwing cliches out as truths (think: “Location is everything.”)

We were also looking at houses from a strictly financial vantage point, as an investment. Remember, we’re turning the house around and selling it for mucho dinero. We started to read Dwell.

We had a great guy for our realtor: Andrew. We’d all go to look at houses, and dissect them clinically (think: “It’s interesting that they updated the entire kitchen in pink Formica and white lace, while maintaining the original hunting-lodge, stone, and hardwood looks of the adjacent dining room.”) It was in the pink Formica kitchen that Andrew uttered a thought that would shift the vector of our search.

He said: “So I understand that you’ll need space for at least ten bicycles right now, but what about space for little bicycles, someday?”

He mentioned children. That got my partner and I thinking. All the neighborhoods in which we’d been looking for houses weren’t necessarily kid-friendly. Some were yuppie-friendly, or hippie-friendly, or queer/ anarchist/ radical/ peace lovers/ idealist/ -friendly, so long as they were adults. It’s kind of hard to convince little kids that it’s totally fun that they’ve got a Starbucks, a Stumptown, three pubs, four cafes, a New Seasons, a Wild Oats, a co-op, an infoshop, and two yoga studios within walking distance of their home. There’s just not enough room to run and play once you add in all the amenities that my demographic finds desirable.

My partner and I pondered the kid thing. We decided we wanted one, someday. We added a kid into our home-buying logarithm, because, hey, what if we didn’t sell, and stayed? My partner made an Excel spreadsheet.

Eventually, the kid thing got to be as important a criteria to us as the large kitchen and the garden space. Portland’s such a great town; I think of all the school-aged kids I’ve tutored, mentored, or taught over the past five years, and every one of them has impressed me with their presence of mind, and their understanding of what it means to be a global citizen. As a child, my world began and ended with Texas, and it was a hard pattern of thinking to break when I left home. It’s a pattern of thinking that’s easy to fall into, but here in Portland, it’s one that continually being challenged. I’d like for my child to grow up being challenged in this way, so that he or she will ask everyday what it means to be a global citizen.

More immediately, I’d like for my child to have a place in Portland. The NYTimes article, linked above, is a neat little piece of which to be aware.

Off-topic: ever notice how most of your Portland friends, were not from Portland originally? Maybe it’s just me, but I’m curious where the early 20s Portland natives go. Austin, TX?