Cities Without Children

The Cost of Our Urban Idols

I recently wrote about a district in northern India where, according to reports, not a single girl was born for three months. The main cause of the shocking gender imbalance we see around the world, and especially in India, is sex-­selective abortion. In reaction, some of us may be tempted to think, "Well, what do you expect from people who worship idols with blue skin and elephant heads?"

That would be exactly the wrong reaction. After all, Western countries have idols, too. Worshiping our idols also coincides with a lack of children, and not just baby girls.

Recently in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson pointed out that, despite a decade-long economic and cultural boom in our cities, America's...