Topic
Why families settle elsewhere
Why does Brookline draw fewer young families than towns like Lexington?
Not because its births fell faster, and not simply because it costs more. Brookline's births fell about as much as Lexington's. What sets the family suburbs apart is how many of their homes are family-sized, with three or more bedrooms. Fewer than half of Brookline's homes are, against three in four in Lexington, and for each home of that size the two towns have about the same number of school-age children.
- Comparing the 2005–09 period with the 2019–23 period (five-year averages), births fell about as much in Lexington (25%) and Newton (26%) as in Brookline (26%).
- The difference is families arriving with young children. In Lexington about twice as many children started kindergarten in fall 2025 as were born in town five years earlier; in Brookline slightly fewer did, as some families moved away or chose private school.
- For each family-sized home, Brookline has about as many school-age children as Lexington (0.71 and 0.76), and about as many public school students as Newton and the family suburbs.
- What Brookline has fewer of is family-sized homes: 43% of its homes against 77% of Lexington's. So for each home of any size it has about half as many school-age children (0.31 against 0.58).
- Across twelve nearby towns, drawing young families follows the share of homes that are family-sized much more closely than it follows price.
- Single-family values have risen at about the same rate in Brookline and the family suburbs since 2010, so Brookline has been more expensive throughout rather than becoming so.
- This is a comparison between towns. It shows what goes with drawing families, not what would happen if Brookline's housing changed.
The base case assumes Brookline keeps drawing young families at about its recent rate. The School Department's forecast expects more births, about 600 a year against the 423 counted in 2025. If births stay near the counted level, its FY2034 kindergarten would need about 1.35 kindergartners for every birth, more than Newton or Belmont draw today. This page looks at why towns differ in how many families they draw, using public data for Brookline and eleven towns it is usually compared with.
Throughout, a family-sized home means one with three or more bedrooms. Two sources count them. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey counts bedrooms in every home, rented or owned. Town assessment records cover houses and condominiums but not the units inside apartment buildings, and record rooms rather than bedrooms; six or more rooms matched three or more bedrooms in about nine Brookline homes out of ten.
Births fell almost everywhere
Between the 2005–09 period and the 2019–23 period, comparing five-year averages, births to residents fell 12% in Massachusetts, 14% in the family suburbs and 20% in the neighboring cities and inner suburbs. Brookline's fall, 26%, was the 5th largest of 99 towns with at least 200 births a year; Newton's was 26%, Lexington's 25%, Belmont's 24% and Wellesley's 22%.
Births have fallen across the region, fastest in the inner suburbs
Births to residents, each group's 2005–09 average = 100. Neighboring cities and inner suburbs: Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, Watertown, Arlington, Belmont. Family suburbs: Lexington, Wellesley, Needham, Winchester, Concord, Wayland, Sudbury, Weston. Source: Department of Public Health birth reports.
So falling births do not explain why Lexington's schools fill and Brookline's do not.
The difference is who moves in
Kindergarten divided by births five years earlier measures whether young families arrive or leave between a child's birth and the first day of school. Above 1, more arrive than leave. In Lexington, about twice as many children started kindergarten in fall 2025 (2.07 per birth) as were born in town five years earlier: families moved in with young children. In Brookline slightly fewer started (0.93 per birth) than were born here, because some families moved away or chose private school.
| Town | Kindergartners per birth | Family-sized share of houses and condos | Median sale, family-sized home | Households with children |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lexington | 2.07 | 90% | $1.60 million | 41% |
| Wayland | 1.93 | 88% | $1.11 million | 39% |
| Winchester | 1.64 | 87% | $1.56 million | 42% |
| Needham | 1.44 | 93% | $1.53 million | 42% |
| Wellesley | 1.31 | 93% | $2.11 million | 42% |
| Belmont | 1.21 | 83% | $1.25 million | 40% |
| Newton | 1.07 | 85% | $1.70 million | 33% |
| Brookline | 0.93 | 53% | $1.85 million | 24% |
| Arlington | 0.91 | 73% | $1.13 million | 29% |
| Watertown | 0.62 | 57% | $0.93 million | 20% |
| Cambridge | 0.59 | 38% | $1.70 million | 18% |
| Somerville | 0.52 | 49% | $1.10 million | 14% |
The suburbs draw families with children already born, so their kindergarten classes are larger than their births. Brookline sits with its urban neighbors: kindergarten is a little smaller than births. Before COVID its classes also shrank about 7% between kindergarten and grade 12; since FY2022 they have grown about 6%, partly as families returned after COVID (how a class moves up the grades).
Children per family-sized home
For each family-sized home, Brookline has about as many school-age children as the family suburbs. The Census Bureau's survey counts 0.71 children aged 5 to 17 for each Brookline home with three or more bedrooms, against 0.76 in Lexington and 0.64 to 0.82 in Newton and the family suburbs below. Counting only public school students, Brookline has 0.54 for each family-sized home, within the range of those towns (0.48 to 0.68), though below Lexington's 0.66.
| Town | Share of homes that are family-sized | Children 5–17 per family-sized home | Public school students per family-sized home | Children 5–17 per home, all sizes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wellesley | 81% | 0.78 | 0.50 | 0.63 |
| Needham | 77% | 0.81 | 0.58 | 0.63 |
| Winchester | 78% | 0.77 | 0.64 | 0.60 |
| Lexington | 77% | 0.76 | 0.66 | 0.58 |
| Wayland | 74% | 0.69 | 0.68 | 0.51 |
| Belmont | 59% | 0.82 | 0.68 | 0.48 |
| Newton | 69% | 0.64 | 0.48 | 0.44 |
| Arlington | 51% | 0.70 | 0.57 | 0.35 |
| Brookline | 43% | 0.71 | 0.54 | 0.31 |
| Watertown | 39% | 0.51 | 0.40 | 0.20 |
| Cambridge | 28% | 0.64 | 0.44 | 0.18 |
| Somerville | 37% | 0.35 | 0.33 | 0.13 |
What Brookline has fewer of is family-sized homes: 43% of its homes, against 77% of Lexington's. That is why, counting every home of any size, Brookline has about half as many school-age children per home (0.31 against 0.58). If Brookline had Lexington's mix of homes and the same number of children for each family-sized home that it has now, it would have about 0.55 children per home, most of the way to Lexington's.
Lexington's lead in public school students for each family-sized home (0.66 against 0.54) comes mostly from where children go to school. About 75% of Brookline's school-age children are in its public schools, against 87% in Lexington.
"Children 5–17" are everyone that age the Census Bureau's survey counts, in public or private school; "public school students" are DESE's fall 2025 kindergarten-to-grade-12 count. Children do not all live in family-sized homes, so dividing by those homes is a way of allowing for each town's mix, not a count of where children live. Somerville's low figure is a reminder that larger apartments there are often shared by adults.
What goes with drawing families
The chart sets kindergartners per birth against the share of each town's houses and condos that are family-sized, from assessment records.
Towns with more family-sized homes draw more kindergartners per birth
Each dot is a town. Kindergartners per birth: fall 2025 kindergarten divided by resident births in 2020, the year most of the class was born; above 1 (dashed line), more young families arrive than leave. Family-sized: houses and condos with 6 or more rooms, from each town's assessment records. Sources: DESE, Department of Public Health, MassGIS.
Across the twelve towns the two move closely together (a correlation of 0.82), and the Census Bureau's own count of homes with three or more bedrooms tells the same story (0.86). Price does much less to separate them (0.18): Wellesley's family-sized homes cost more than Brookline's and it still draws families, while Somerville's cost far less and it does not.
Brookline's housing is mostly smaller condominiums and apartments. About 53% of its houses and condos are family-sized, against 90% in Lexington, and counting apartments too the shares are 43% and 77%. In the Census Bureau's 2020–24 survey 23.5% of Brookline's homes were single-family houses, against 82.6% in Lexington. That housing suits the people who live there: 18.8% of Brookline residents are 25 to 34, against 4.2% in Lexington, and 24% of households have children, against 41%.
The family-sized homes Brookline does have are expensive, even by the standard of its neighbors. Family-sized homes that sold in 2023 to 2025 went for a median of $1.85 million in Brookline and $1.60 million in Lexington. A six-room house in Brookline sold for a median of $2.54 million, against $1.66 million in Lexington, and a six-room condominium for $1.54 million, which is about what a typical Lexington house costs.
Brookline has been expensive for a long time
The state's figures for the average single-family value show that Brookline did not become expensive recently. From FY2010 to FY2026 the average rose 129% in Brookline, 140% in Lexington, 121% in Newton and 100% in Wellesley. Brookline's average was 1.62 times Lexington's in FY2010 and 1.55 times in FY2026 ($2.56 million against $1.66 million). The gap in dollars has widened as all values rose, but Brookline has not pulled away from the suburbs.
Brookline's population has grown older at the top and stayed steady in the middle. Census counts show about 57,100 residents in 2000 and 63,300 in the 2020–24 survey; residents 65 and over rose from about 7,100 to 10,200, while those 25 to 44, the age of most parents of young children, stayed near 20,000.
What this does and does not show
This compares towns, not what would happen within one. Towns full of families also differ in their lots, commutes and schools, and families who want space choose towns that have it, so the housing and the families sustain each other. The comparison shows what goes with drawing families. It cannot say how many families would come if Brookline added family-sized homes, or how quickly.
It does explain why the base case continues Brookline's record. The town's mix of homes changes slowly, and the homes being built are mostly apartments, which bring fewer children than houses. New homes and Brookline's budget works through what those homes add to enrollment and cost.
Data and caveats
- Births: Department of Public Health annual birth reports, 2005 to 2023, resident births by town. Five-year averages are used because a single year's count in a town of Brookline's size can move by 10% on its own.
- Kindergarten per birth: DESE's fall 2025 kindergarten count for each town's own district, divided by resident births in 2020. It is one year; district counts include METCO students, and children in private kindergartens are not counted.
- Family-sized homes and prices: each town's assessment records as published by MassGIS. Rooms are recorded statewide but bedrooms are not; six or more rooms was checked against Brookline's own bedroom counts and matched three or more bedrooms 92.5% of the time. Prices are the last recorded sale for each home, from 2023 to 2025, at least $100,000 and half the assessed value. Towns' records come from different years (FY2024 to FY2027), and Belmont's include only 45 such sales, so its price is less certain.
- Households, ages, children, bedrooms and housing type: the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 2020–24 five-year estimates, which carry margins of error of a few percentage points for towns this size. Homes include vacant ones. The share in public schools divides DESE's fall 2025 kindergarten-to-grade-12 count, which includes METCO students, by the survey's children aged 5 to 17, so it is approximate.
- Single-family values: the Division of Local Services' average single-family value, FY2010 to FY2026. The state leaves Brookline out before FY2022, as it does towns with a residential exemption, so Brookline's earlier years follow the change in its own assessment roll, scaled to the state's FY2022 figure. (The roll's own average runs about 21% above the state's in every year both exist, because the two count somewhat different sets of parcels; only its year-to-year change is used.)
- Correlations are across twelve towns and describe how closely two measures move together; they do not measure cause.
Go deeper
- Enrollment: three forecasts compared: Why do the enrollment forecasts disagree, and which one does the base case use?
- Schools: staffing, costs and open seats: How is Brookline's school system staffed, what does an added student cost, and how much room do the schools have?
- New homes and Brookline's budget: What does a new home cost the Town, now that enrollment is falling?
- Data and sources: Where does each number come from?
Last updated 2026-10-16. What has changed.