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A Retirement Community

The letter “A Unique Outlook” [by Hannah Bridge , Dec. 28, 2017] has led me to think back on our family’s time in Madison. The demographics at that time was that incoming young families brought 2.0 children with more to come. The education received was very much as Hannah Bridge described. Peak enrollment was 3,838 in 2006. The current enrollment is approximately 2,806, a decline of 1,032.

Bridge noted that “Not as many families are choosing to raise their kids here.” The school population is the product of several demographic factors—first, the births in Madison five years before kindergarten entry, and also the net increase/decrease in school-aged children from the net of in/out migration. Births peaked at 195 in 1998 and have declined to the high 80s to low 90s the past 10 years. Therefore, kindergarten enrollment peaked at 270 in 2002-’03. It was at 164 in 2017. Also, the turnover of housing in Madison has declined by 50 percent in the past 20 years. New housing, net of demolitions, is in the low teens.

Our school enrollment decline has been rolling through the lower grades for six- to seven years and will hit Polson next year and Hand three- to four years later. The two main reasons for this happening is the fact that millennial women are having fewer and later children and that, for the most part, only older established families can afford Madison housing prices.

Madison’s population of those aged 20 to 34 represent 8.05 percent of the total. For the state, it’s 18.76 percent. We handily top the state in the 65-and-over cohort, 20.85- to 15.10 percent. Unless Madison encourages housing for young folks, we will become more and more a retirement community. The state projects that our overall population is declining.

Gus Horvath

Madison