Cities Without Children

Cities across the developed world are no longer producing children at replacement levels—and no policy has been able to reverse the trend. Cities Without Children argues that this is not a temporary disruption, cultural phase, or political failure, but a structural outcome of how modern cities function. Through clear analysis of housing markets, labor specialization, credential timelines, partner markets, and childcare economics, this book shows how density, competition, and network effects quietly make family formation irrational for most urban residents. The same forces that generate wealth, innovation, and opportunity simultaneously suppress fertility through cost, time pressure, instability, and social fragmentation. This book does not offer optimism or solutions. Instead, it provides a precise diagnosis of why every advanced city is converging on the same outcome—and why fertility decline may be irreversible without dismantling the economic logic that makes cities successful in the first place. For readers interested in demographics, urban futures, economics, and long-term societal risk, this book explains what is happening, why it is happening everywhere, and what kind of world follows.