Where Did All of Los Angeles' Children Go? Who Cares!

“The number of children between the ages of 5 and 9 in the county decreased by 21% from 2000 to 2010” — and demographers are panicking about how that’s going to impact the local workforce in the future. But that seems a remarkably old-world way to think about population trends. This isn’t Ames, Iowa, with a brain drain and nobody about to take care of aging parents! With 15 million people in the metro area, around a city where 40% of the population is foreign-born, it’s not the children who are going to be doing the future working. It’s a city of transience and immigration, and Los Angeles has become a hub of international movement — and godless lifestyles, too, of course: “There were 32% more households with unmarried couples throughout the state in 2010 than a decade earlier.” That actually means a better future workforce, one unencumbered by marriages, unencumbered by roots. Los Angeles is becoming a city of choice.