San Francisco Not Losing Kids, Despite What Chronicle Story Says: Correction

Who said you couldn't raise six kids in San Francisco?

​This post previously asserted that a San Francisco Chronicle story misinterpreted the latest available data in order to report a substantial trend in which the city was losing children.

Teresa Ojeda, manager of the Planning Department's division of Information and Analysis, had told SF Weekly that the most recently available demographic data was for the years 2005 to 2009 from the American Communities Survey. That survey indicated that in 2009, San Francisco had more children than in 2000.
That survey also said the city now had more local families with children than it had previously. The ACS data showed a slight increase in children aged five and under and a slight increase in those between ages six and 17, suggesting the Chronicle had made a strong statement based on weak data.

Full-head-count U.S. Census data from 2010 -- as opposed to the thin 2009 survey data -- was not yet available, Ojeda said early Monday. However, she later informed us that previously embargoed Census data was in fact available. It showed that between 2000 and 2010, San Francisco had lost around 5,000 children.

We regret the error.

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