Baby Driver: Building the Road to Affordable Childcare as an Infrastructure Investment

Childcare in the United States has become an increasingly critical issue in recent years, as young women forgo having children due to the cost of childcare. Between 2016 and 2024, the number of annual live births decreased by 8.4% and the proportion of non-Hispanic white women with children fell to 49.6%, meaning more white women in the US don’t have children than do for the first time (Grünebaum & Chervenak, 2026). The United States spends on average just less than half of other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries on childcare as a percentage of GDP . This lack of available and/or a\ordable childcare in the United States has led to decreased economic activity due to decreased participation in the labor force, primarily among women (“Child Care Is Infrastructure, ” 2024). The U.S. childcare system is experiencing a structural market failure with measurable economic consequences, and urban planners, who have historically shaped the physical and policy infrastructure of the country. Are well positioned to intervene. This paper argues that reframing childcare as economic infrastructure (rather than a matter to be left to families, private companies, and nonprofit organizations), allows planners to implement spatial and policy frameworks alleviating the care burden on working families.