Moving to a neighborhood with a fine and reputable public school in New York City can be enormously complicated. Not just because of the cost, although it's difficult to find a decent family sized apartment in Manhattan near a good public school for under $4,000 a month in rent. The real difficulty has become getting in -- and no, we aren't talking about the same old tired competition for the $30,000 plus kindergarten.

We are talking about public schools in neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, TriBeCa and the Upper East Side that have become so popular and coveted that even people who specifically rented or purchased apartments directly across the street from them are finding themselves on waiting lists. Many of these schools are bursting with more than 28 children in a class and some of the buildings house middle school students several floors above.

EarlyStories has been watching and commenting on this trend for months, and the New York Times is really picking up on it now that parents anxiety has morphed into full blown fury. According to the Times, not the first news outlet to report the story, "middle-class vitriol against the school system — and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — is mounting."

All of this comes at a bad time for Bloomberg, who wants state lawmakers to renew mayoral control of the city school system after it expires in two months. In addition, the mayor is seeking an unprecedented third term, staking some of it on his education record and what he says is a turnaround of the largest school system in the U.S.

For more than five years, journalists in New York City have noted the trend of a growing middle class seeking to raise their children in the city instead of fleeing to suburbia. With competition and cost putting private school out of reach for many, it's natural that parents would turn to public schools and seek out those with the best reputations -- which are often in desirable neighborhoods, or have the effect of making a neighborhood desirable.

In the next few weeks, rallies, letter writing campaigns and protests will heat up in New York City and the mayor and Department of Education will be pressured to find spots for these families.

There is likely one group applauding this trend -- suburban realtors with lots of inventory on hand in areas outside Manhattan with fine public schools.