Kids and Georgetown

 It is often said that there are are few children in Georgetown these days. It is easy to see where people might get that idea: most homes large enough to house a family comfortably (even by townhouse standards) are too expensive for young families to afford.  Plus, you just don’t see that many kids running around the neighborhood that often. With that in mind it’s interesting to look at the numbers and see exactly how many kids there are in Georgetown and how that compares to other DC neighborhoods of similar demographics.

The most recent data available for population-by-neighborhood is the 2000 census. From this data we can see how many children were around at the dawn of the Tony Williams era.

Georgetown Residents 17 and Younger in 2000: 775
Total Residents: 8524
Percent: 9.09%

So in 2000, almost a tenth of the Georgetown population was under the age of 18. What’s that even mean? How’s that compare?

Before tabulating the numbers, GM’s guess was that Georgetown’s child population was well below neighborhoods like Cleveland Park or Chevy Chase. Well, he was half right. Check it out:

                                    Total Pop.                  Child Pop.                  Percent

Georgetown:          8524                            775                              9.09
Palisades:              8694                            1179                             13.56
AU Park/S.V.        13270                         2190                            16.50
Cleveland Park     7684                            748                              9.73
Glover Park           7721                            492                               6.37
Chevy Chase DC  12724                          2480                            19.49

So it looks like Georgetown is behind such kinderhoods like AU Park/Spring Valley and Chevy Chase, but not by as much as you’d think. Moreover who would have guessed there’s more children, in both real and relative numbers, in Georgetown than Cleveland Park?

And remember, these are 2000 numbers. There are probably more children in Georgetown now than there were nine years ago. Check out the percentage changes for the child population in these neighborhoods from 1990 to 2000:

                                  Percent Increase of Child Population from 1990 to 2000

Georgetown         27.89%
Palisades               11.12%
AU Park/S.V.      16.37%
Cleveland Park   -14.71%
Glover Park         -7.52%
Chevy Chase DC  11.86% 

You can see that of these neighborhoods, Georgetown had the largest increase in its child population from 1990 to 2000. There’s no reason to think this hasn’t continued. While it’s unlikely that these numbers will have changed at the exact same rate from 1990 to 2000, it’s interesting to see what they’d look like if they did:

                               Project 2010 Numbers Based On Change from 1990 to 2000
                               Total Pop.                       Child Pop.               Percent

Georgetown        8707                                991                            11.38
Palisades             9588                                1310                          13.66
AU Park/S.V.     13377                             2548                          19.05
Cleveland Park  9403                                638                            6.78
Glover Park         7548                               455                            6.03
Chevy Chase DC 14066                            2774                         19.72

It’s tough to picture Cleveland Park and Glover Park continuing their child-population decline through this decade, but it does seem likely that Georgetown will pick up a percentage or two this next go around.

What do you think? Do these numbers agree with your observations?