In Defense of Catholic Suburbia

OK, I can't help myself.  I have a question for you Catholic urbanites.  How many of you are sending your children to your local public shool?  If you are, instead, sending your children to a local parochial or private school, what's the percentage of kids in those schools with special needs?  Does it come close to approximating the percentage of the general population with special needs? 

I'll bet some of your neighbors with school-aged children (OK, maybe not your immediate neighbors, but maybe neighbors four or five blocks away from you) do not feel quite as content with urban life, or feel quite as welcome in your urban Catholic parishes, as you do.  The only Catholic school I've ever known to actually recruit kids with special needs (OK, well, maybe just one kid, the daughter of a friend of mine) is the school of my comfortably suburban parish. 

If we're going to start talking about what kinds of parishes "feel" more Catholic to us than others, I think we're going to end up finding it very, very, hard to generalize.