Astoria rarely gets a full-scale story in the Washington Post but was the subject of a deep statistical dive on Jan. 24 by WaPo’s “Department of Data” in an interesting analysis by Andrew Van Dam (tinyurl.com/WaPo-Astoria).

The bottom line is that one of several movies based in Astoria, 1990’s “Kindergarten Cop” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and set at Astoria Elementary School, exaggerated how downtrodden the town was back then. In particular, Astoria was said by screenwriters to be “the single-parent capital of America.”

Thanks to Schwarzenegger’s charisma and Hollywood marketing, in WaPo’s opinion the movie “helped reframe single parenthood as freeing and flirty.” This cheery view doesn’t square with that of a lot of hardworking single parents, who struggle here as elsewhere finding child care and other resources to stretch one income around the logistics of family life. Nor did it match reality in Astoria and the surrounding area in 1990, or now, 35 years later.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Department of Data does fascinating reporting by mining and interpreting the vast storehouses of information compiled by agencies, companies and other entities. WaPo’s writers peel back the numbers to arrive at results that are often surprising and challenge conventional wisdom.

In the era of “Kindergarten Cop,” Astoria did indeed look rough around the edges. The essential Astoria Plywood Mill closed in 1989, throwing many out of work. It later burned down, leaving a warlike field of wreckage. Somewhat earlier, in the 1970s, “Clatsop County had the 12th-highest poverty rate of Oregon’s 36 counties, [and] the county had more unmarried parents, relative to total parent households, than all but two other Oregon counties. In 1970, it ranked 732nd out of more than 3,100 counties nationally; in 1980, that rose to 462nd,” WaPo observes.

But it’s seen a big turnaround. Clatsop County’s 2019-2023 average of residents living below the poverty line was 12.3%; 16.3% are on public assistance or SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. (In comparison, Pacific County’s poverty rate averaged 11.6%, with 17.4% on assistance/SNAP.)

“The places with the most single parents tend to be, to put it bluntly, struggling,” WaPo observes. “The strongest predictors of single parenthood are high poverty rates and high shares of the population receiving government assistance. Astoria … doesn’t fit the bill. While the city may not have parlayed its position at the mouth of the miles-wide Columbia River into success as the New Orleans or New York of the West Coast, as its boosters once dreamed, it has carved out a comfortable existence in Oregon’s northwestern extremity.”

Looking closer at current conditions, “About 28% of Astoria households with children are unpartnered, a bit above the national rate of 25.5%, and enough to rank about 6,000th in the 15,000 places for which the 2020 Census has at least 100 households with children.” In Clatsop County as a whole, 24.6% of households with children are led by single parents, about on par with other coastal counties in Oregon and Washington.

Local historians Liisa Penner and John Goodenberger described to the Washington Post how the city has changed in recent decades.

“Today, Astoria is a destination so desirable that, Goodenberger says, some fear it’s being loved to death. Home prices — up more than 140% in the past decade, faster growth than in more than 90% of its peers, according to Zillow data — are squeezing out many longtime residents.”

The rapid escalation in the cost of housing makes it harder and harder for people around the mouth of the Columbia to get a first toehold on this important means of wealth creation. This is especially true for single parents, who often find it hard to even afford rent, far less the down payment on a house or condo. This locks too many local children and, usually, their mothers in hardship, even though WaPo notes it is the counties and states of the Old South are the actual heart of single parenthood.

It’s good that being a single parent carries neither the stigma of earlier generations nor the false stylishness presented by “Kindergarten Cop.” But as some national priorities appear to be in the throes of massive change, we on this remote coast must continue exploring ways to make sure all children have paths to success.