No kid zone: San Francisco is young, rich and single

City by the Bay has lowest percentage of children of any of nation’s top 100

SAN FRANCISCO — In a compact studio apartment on the fringes of the Castro district, a young couple live with their demanding 7-year-old, whom they dote on and take everywhere: a Scottish terrier named Olive.

Raising children is on the agenda for Daisy Yeung, a high school science teacher, and Slin Lee, a software engineer. Just not in San Francisco.

“It’s starting to feel like a no-kids type of city,” Lee said.

Before the technology boom transformed San Francisco and sent housing costs soaring, the city was alive with families.

Today, it has the lowest percentage of children of any of the largest 100 cities in the United States, according to census data.

“Everybody talks about children being our future,” said Norman Yee, a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. “If you have no children around, what’s our future?”

San Francisco’s population has risen to historical highs and condominiums have replaced warehouses and abandoned wharves. At the same time, the share of children in San Francisco fell to 13 percent, low even compared with New York, with 21 percent. In Chicago, 23 percent of the population is younger than 18, which also is the overall average across the United States.

California, which has one of the world’s 10 largest economies, recently released data showing the lowest birthrate since the Great Depression.

As San Francisco moves toward a one-industry town with soaring costs, the dearth of children raises questions about its character.

San Francisco, population 865,000, has roughly the same number of dogs as children: 120,000. In many areas, pet grooming shops seem more common than schools.

Prohibitive housing costs are not the only reason there are relatively few children. A public school system of uneven quality, the attractiveness of the suburbs to families, and the large number of gay men and women, many of them childless, have played roles in the decline in the number of children, which began with white flight from the city in the 1970s. The tech boom reinforces the notion that San Francisco is a place for the young, single and rich.

“If you get to the age that you’re going to have kids in San Francisco and you haven’t made your million — or more — you probably begin to think you have to leave,” said Richard Florida, an expert in urban demographics and author of “The Rise of the Creative Class.”