Where The New Kids Are
Areas of San Francisco That Gained The Most Kids Since The Last Census
There’s a lot of discussion now about the proper use of the infrastructure funds raised by SFUSD. Should the money go to refurbish Buena Vista-Horace Mann or to build a new arts school or to build a school in Mission Bay? I’ve nothing to add on the first two options, but here’s a reminder of why a school in Mission Bay was deemed a priority.
This is the change in the U18 population in San Francisco between 2010 and 2020, according to the recently released census results.
Although San Francisco added nearly 70,000 people between 2010 and 2020, only 5700 of them were under 18. Children are getting even rarer in San Francisco. And the gains that did occur were not spread evenly over the city. The major gains happened in areas with new development and in the central parts of the city:
The area that spans Mission Bay and SOMA gained over 3000 kids.
The central part of the city, from Glen Park north to the Marina, gained kids in most census tracts, totaling nearly 5000 extra kids.
The area east of 101 and south of Mission Bay added over 500 kids as the new developments in the 3rd St corridor down to Candlestick Point outweighed a loss of kids in the traditional heart of the Bayview.
The western and southern parts of the city actually lost children over the decade:
The tracts south of 280 and west of 101 (Excelsior, Visitacion Valley, Portola, etc.) all lost children. Combined, these tracts are down nearly 3,000 kids.
The Sunset, particularly the Outer Sunset west of 19th Ave, lost over 350 children.
The Mission (defined here as the tracts between 17th St and Cesar Chavez and between 101 and Dolores St) lost nearly 600 children.
Clicking on the image above or here will enable you to examine the change in each tract.
There may be many new children in Mission Bay and SOMA but children are less than 10% of the population in many of the individual census tracts there. Bayview, despite losing kids over the decade, is still the neighborhood with the greatest density of kids and there is a stretch reaching west from there through Bernal, Glen Park, and West Portal where kids are around 20% of the population. The Presidio and a couple of adjacent tracts also reach that threshold.
But to really get a sense of the changing demographics of the city, consider the change by race. The number of Asian, Latino, White, and Black children combined actually fell slightly over the decade. Practically all (95%) of the gain was in children of two or more races.
