Denver No. 14 for kids

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Denver has been ranked as the 14th fastest growing metropolitan area for children, according to a new study.

The report, published in NewGeography.com, is based on an analysis of Census Bureau data from 2000 to 2010 by demographer Wendell Cox, whose Demogrophia consulting- and-research firm is based near St. Louis.

The analysis shows that from 2000 to 2010, the number of children in the Denver area, aged 5 to 17 years old, rose by 12.8 percent. That is 237 percent higher than the national average of 3.8 percent . However, what may be the most surprising statistic that Las Vegas was ranked No. 2, showing a whopping 40.7 percent increase in its kids population during that decade. Only Raleigh, N.C., did better, with a 49.4 percent increase. Some other areas that out-performed Denver on a percentage basis included Austin, Charlotte, Austin, Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Orlando, and Houston. Some areas with expensive housing, such as San Diego, San Francisco, Boston and New York, saw declines in their kid populations during the decade.

Affordable housing key

“One thing these regions share is affordable housing,” Joel Kotkin wrote in the NewGeogrophy article. “Throughout the real estate bubble, housing prices in Raleigh, the Texas cities and Atlanta remained low. Today, prices have also plummeted in virtually all the other markets in our top ten, reinforcing their relative affordability.” Kotkin, who write frequently on national housing and demographic issues, also said that job growth was an important factor in the “family hot spots,” across the country.

Tom Cryer, a broker with the Kentwood Co., said he is seeing an increase in people house-hunting who are moving to the Denver area from outside of Colorado.

“I would say all of them have one to four kids in that age range,” Cryer said. “No, I take that back. I just closed a house with a radiation physicist – he’s the guy who sets the dial when you are having radiation therapy for cancer – who has six kids. He and his wife are from Montana and have an affinity for the West, so I think it was something of a lifestyle choice. They had a good career opportunity in the Denver area. Four of his six kids are out of the house, and they thought this was a good area to raise their last two kids. They bought a house in eastern Centennial.”

Families with kids moving to Denver area

Cryer said that earlier this week, he was showing another couple home with children aged 7, 8 and 10. They are moving from the St. Louis area. Cryer said most of the people moving from out-of-state want either brand new or almost-new homes in the suburbs.

“To be completely honest with you, after walking through 10 resale homes that are not presented well, most people choose either newly constructed or at least newer homes,” Cryer said. “These people are mobile and they know they may move every three to five years. They do not want to expend their first year fixing all of the things that are wrong with a resale.”

Cryer said that he is not surprised that Raleigh and Las Vegas were the top two cities on the list.

“My daughter went to Duke, and when we used to fly into that Triangle and Chapel Hill area, it looked their whole world was under construction,” Cryer said. “In this window of time when there was all of this economic uncertainty, the Raleigh area looked like a boom town. They were building roads and buildings and new restaurants were going up. You just got the impression that they were creating a lot of jobs.”

Cryer also said he thinks that Las Vegas, one of the hardest hit cities in the nation as far as home prices plummeting, is turning around.

“Housing prices are certainly affordable in Las Vegas now,” Cryer said. “They made so many stated-income loans in Las Vegas that when the bubble burst, it really depressed home prices there. I get the impression that Las Vegas is so close to California that you can open a business in Vegas with none of the hassles you find in California, but you have all of the advantages of California as far as transportation and distribution. I think slowly but surely, Las Vegas is turning around.”

Chris Behrens, a broker owner of New Era Realty, said it is a “it of a shocker” that Vegas has seen such a huge increase in the number of families with children.

“Maybe it’s because it is so affordable – you can certainly get a lot of house for the money in Las Vegas,” Behrens said.

He agreed with Cryer that the Denver area is seeing an increase number of home buyers relocating from other states, many of whom have school-age children.

“A good 33 percent or more of our business are folks moving here from other parts of the country,” Behrens said. “I’m seeing a huge influx of people in the energy sector. A large number of those are energy professionals, usually engineers.” He said most of them are moving from Texas. If their kids are still in school, he said many of them are choosing to live in the nicer parts of Arvada, or in the close-in southeast suburbs. “If they are working in downtown, most of them want to be within a 20-minute to 30-minute commute to downtown.”

He said he also has noticed a recent influx of federal government worker moving here. If they work for the government, they typically want to live in the Lakewood area to be near the Federal Center there.

(Editor’s Note: You can choose more than one category in this poll.)

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Fastest Growing Areas for 5-17 Year Olds
Rank		2000	2010	Change	% Change
1	Raleigh	143,369	214,124	70,755	49.4%
2	Las Vegas	248,469	349,636	101,167	40.7%
3	Austin	223,958	307,256	83,298	37.2%
4	Charlotte	243,784	329,495	85,711	35.2%
5	Phoenix	619,044	794,609	175,565	28.4%
6	Atlanta	813,107	1,016,643	203,536	25.0%
7	Dallas-Fort Worth	1,035,311	1,276,916	241,605	23.3%
8	Orlando	300,729	367,908	67,179	22.3%
9	Houston	988,463	1,190,078	201,615	20.4%
10	San	353,599	418,439	64,840	18.3%
11	Riverside-San Bernardino	756,033	893,468	137,435	18.2%
12	Nashville	235,779	278,122	42,343	18.0%
13	Indianapolis	293,728	332,189	38,461	13.1%
14	Denver	402,259	453,645	51,386	12.8%
15	Tampa-St. Petersburg	387,074	432,851	45,777	11.8%
16	Salt Lake City	210,272	232,331	22,059	10.5%
17	Columbus	297,323	327,153	29,830	10.0%
18	Washington	878,018	957,157	79,139	9.0%
19	Sacramento	361,875	390,940	29,065	8.0%
20	Oklahoma City	205,122	221,354	16,232	7.9%
21	Jacksonville	216,124	233,109	16,985	7.9%
22	Portland	356,220	381,928	25,708	7.2%
23	Louisville	212,078	224,638	12,560	5.9%
24	Kansas City	356,234	376,038	19,804	5.6%
25	Richmond	204,359	215,599	11,240	5.5%
26	Memphis	249,261	255,755	6,494	2.6%
27	Seattle	548,711	562,461	13,750	2.5%
28	San Jose	309,422	317,055	7,633	2.5%
29	Minneapolis-St. Paul	580,592	593,309	12,717	2.2%
30	Miami	870,894	881,916	11,022	1.3%
31	Birmingham	192,830	195,263	2,433	1.3%
32	San Diego	525,040	520,745	-4,295	-0.8%
33	Hartford	205,814	204,130	-1,684	-0.8%
34	Cincinnati	390,704	387,109	-3,595	-0.9%
35	Chicago	1,772,051	1,745,047	-27,004	-1.5%
36	San Francisco-Oakland	676,544	660,471	-16,073	-2.4%
37	Boston	751,049	726,366	-24,683	-3.3%
38	New York	3,269,939	3,144,025	-125,914	-3.9%
39	Milwaukee	292,713	279,371	-13,342	-4.6%
40	Philadelphia	1,074,283	1,023,024	-51,259	-4.8%
41	Baltimore	479,250	455,157	-24,093	-5.0%
42	St. Louis	528,319	493,153	-35,166	-6.7%
43	Virginia Beach	306,209	284,872	-21,337	-7.0%
44	Los Angeles	2,482,750	2,301,383	-181,367	-7.3%
45	Providence	281,358	257,614	-23,744	-8.4%
46	Detroit	869,661	784,176	-85,485	-9.8%
47	Cleveland	403,465	360,365	-43,100	-10.7%
48	Rochester	200,620	177,981	-22,639	-11.3%
49	Pittsburgh	406,762	353,740	-53,022	-13.0%
50	Buffalo	213,785	184,816	-28,969	-13.6%
51	New Orleans	261,362	195,664	-65,698	-25.1%
	Total	28,485,719	29,560,594	1,074,875	3.8%
Source: U.S. Census 2000, U.S. Census 2010. Analysis by Wendell Cox.