Metro areas in the south still have higher fertility rates: https://www.statista.com/statistics/432838/us-metropolitan-a...

If it were just a matter of population density, not just metro area population, then low-density high-population metro areas, like those on the west coast, would still have high fertility rates, but they are lower than the high-density high-population metro areas on the east coast.

There seems to be a much stronger correlation to culture or general location than population density.

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FiatLuxDave 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

Rarely have I seen someone shoot down their own argument with a link quite as effectively as this.

You might want to google those cities, since every single one that I've checked is a small population city surrounded by rural area.

Your argument about cultural influence might be more persuasive if you compared larger cities.

	▲	PaulHoule 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I don't disbelieve the cultural influence myself but I'm pretty sure that urbanization matters. I think the master narrative of human civilization is that almost all of us had ancestors working in subsistence agriculture a few generation ago who have moved or are moving into urban areas. This transition is largely complete in the US and Europe, happened explosively in China post-1980 and is about 2/3 complete there and is less far along in Africa and South America. Birth rates go down in this process.