Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Joe Downtown Radio: People really are raising kids downtown

Joe Downtown Radio

Raising kids downtown

Joe Schoenmann talks to three parents about their experiences, fears, joys and challenges of raising kids in the heart of Sin City.

Despite the rebirth occurring downtown, many Las Vegans still believe anyone living close to the urban core — at least closer than Summerlin or Green Valley — is a bit nuts.

To this day you can read fire-and-brimstone rants online about downtown and what an awful place it is. Or try this: visit a coffee shop or bar out in the suburbs. Ask someone how they feel about downtown. I've received this response, in a tone bordering on condescension: "Never been there."

But guess what? People not only live downtown, they have the audacity to raise kids there.

How did it come to this — who would ever raise a child in a house that was built before 1980? Imagine the horror of living in a neighborhood that doesn't enjoy the security of a gated entrance? Why, you'd have to keep the kids indoors all day and cover their eyes as they walk the streets full of hookers and drug dealers.

And yet, they do it.

Well, you're thinking, of course they do. chuckle. They have no choice. They can't afford to live out in the tony suburbs.

You're about to find out that's not the case.

You're about to find out people want to raise their kids in downtown for a variety of reasons. No, not because of the public schools, which suffer. But there are other benefits.

On this broadcast of the Joe Downtown Show, produced by KUNV 91.5 FM, hear from three parents about their experiences, fears, joys and challenges of raising kids in the heart of Sin City.

Listen here.

Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts building.

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