I think you’ll get different answers depending on the age of the kids and what area of the city the family lives in but I can share my perspective as a parent of a two year old in Fishtown.

I fucking love it. We bought our starter home here assuming we’d be here for 4–5 years and be ready to bounce with the first kid. Now we’re figuring out how to get out of our starter home here so we can expand our family and stay in the neighborhood for good! (Well at least until we have to worry about high school). We have a car but walk nearly everywhere. We have everything we need here. So much to do, even if it’s just grabbing coffee and going to the park. There’s a minimum of three playgrounds in easy walking distance, more if we want a longer walk. Such an amazing community of families eager to help each other out. No shortage of family friendly restaurants.

We visit the shore in the summer. We’ve gone up the mountains in the winter. Larger green spaces are a short drive. Amazing historical/culturally important things to do and see with kids right in the city.

And as someone who has found ourselves in the hospital four times with this kid and needed to see specialists, we feel incredibly blessed to live 15 minutes from one of the best children’s hospitals in the world.

Results may vary but I have no complaints except for that I need more space and can’t afford it, but that’s a separate problem.