The Economist.
Hi, John Prudeau here.
I host Checks and Balance, our podcast on US politics.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
Here's an article from the latest edition of The Economist, handpicked by our team and read aloud.
I hope you enjoy it.
Not long ago, Wicker Park, a neighbourhood on the northwest side of Chicago, was among America's hippest neighbourhoods.
On summer weekends, young people with weird haircuts mobbed nightclubs.
Vintage stores did a roaring trade in faded T-shirts from the 1980s.
A few Puerto Rican restaurants, remnants of a poorer neighbourhood,
sat uneasily alongside the new cafes serving cronuts and unlimited mimosas.
Walk through Wicker Park these days and it feels a little different.
It is still gentrified, more so if anything.
The vintage stores have not gone away, but the new crowd is rather younger.
Nursery workers lead gaggles of toddlers in bright yellow vests around the streets.
On the 606, a park built along a former railway track,
almost everyone seems to be pushing an expensive pram or carrying a child on a bicycle.
At weekends, a clutch of craft brewery tap rooms fill up with fathers.
A new private school recently opened and a billboard advertises a clever new type of child car seat.
Cities across America are losing children fast.