Huddled Masses

What are the effects on families of living in a city of skyscrapers?

That’s one of the pivotal questions raised by Joel Kotkin’s new book. Kotkin is both a field researcher who travels widely and a demographer who makes extensive use of Census Bureau research. He employs both these avenues of inquiry on behalf of a provocative thesis: One of the main causes for the declining birth rates seen in the industrialized world is the experience of life in crowded metropolises.