[Kuiper]

I've seen some online commenters (that I can only assume are younger millennials or Gen-Z'ers) call the show "unrealistic" due to the amount of autonomy the kids have, apparently not realizing that this is how many people grew up in the 1980's. It's hard not to feel wistful when you see that things have changed so much that people growing up today will watch a show where kids bicycle around town in the afternoon before going home for dinner and can't identify with it.

I was born in 1990 and I feel like my childhood sort of straddled the line between these two realities. When my family moved to California in the early 90's, I made friends with the neighbor kids simply because they were the neighbor kids, and we many afternoons finding wandering around looking for ways to entertain ourselves. Kids would frequently play in the middle of the street. Nowadays, the streets of that neighborhood are empty. I'll go to the small nearby park, and maybe see kids if there's a youth sports league game or someone having a birthday party there.

Having spent some time in Australia recently, one of the things that struck me is how often you see kids (often in their school uniforms) walking around town by themselves, going to get fast food with friends or hang out at the library. In the US, I've also noticed it in several ethnic neighborhoods (Jewish and Chinese neighborhoods, specifically).

Part of me wonders how much of this is born out of affluence. On occasion, I'll find myself passing through a lower-income part of town, and the dynamic changes. You see kids walking to the store alone, maybe to buy things, maybe just to hang around and wait for their friends to stop by. Often, groups of kids consist of an older kid (maybe 10 years old) acting as a "caretaker" for a younger group of siblings. You'll be pumping gas, and someone at the opposite pump randomly strike up a conversation with you. If you're not used to it, it actually kind of catches you off guard. I know some people flee to suburbs specifically to avoid these kinds of interactions, but once you get past the initial surprise of, "huh, someone I don't know started talking to me just to talk to me, that doesn't happen every day," I actually find certain parts of it to be quite pleasant. It reminds me of how I used to live, and how I suspect my parents (and their parents) lived.

[matte_black]

Around here, they have dismantled and removed bike racks at schools because kids are no longer allowed to bike to school.

Too dangerous and the school does not want any liability for a kid being struck and killed.

[Cthulhu_]

And there you have the crux of the matter. On the one hand, I'm sure cities have gotten larger, traffic a lot busier, suburbia becoming busier, etc. On the other, parents are afraid, and get told by e.g. the media to be afraid - there's child snatchers around every corner, for example.

But what are the distances kids have to travel to school or their friends nowadays vs back then? I mean the school bus was a thing back then too.

[Broken_Hippo]

"But what are the distances kids have to travel to school or their friends nowadays vs back then? I mean the school bus was a thing back then too."

This highly depends on the area, at least with schooling. In Indiana, it was around a half mile when I was a child in the 80's. This was where the school wouldn't bus you. Sometimes in high school, it was around a mile. Some folks have to walk a mile and a half.

My sister just spent some time in Connecticut - there were no busses for anyone. Only one of the busy roads had a crossing guard and things for elementary students.

For playing and whatnot, I think this highly depends on area and parents. While I could walk to a friend's house in the same neighborhood in the town I grew up in, my sister often couldn't because the town of 40,000 we lived in was a normal, sprawled, midwestern town and it was often too far to walk. By the time my brother (11 years younger than me) reached some of those ages, they moved to a rural location and distances got further. I had friends with much more freedom than I had, however: My mother was fairly strict.

[ptero]

> Parents are afraid, and get told by e.g. the media to be afraid

As a parent, this has not been my experience. In our (pretty affluent and safe) town I still see kids walking to elementary school alone. I let my kids stay home alone when they were 3-5 (you can go with me to the grocery store or play home, your choice) with main fear while I am gone being that of police or juvenile justice Nazis.

The media and government do seem intent on snuffing this out. In their view we must be afraid and any attempt to let kids play by themselves is placing them in unnecessary risk.

[flyinghamster]

Here in the far suburban Chicago area, the bike racks at the grade schools are still around and still getting used.

More encouraging to me, I'm seeing more kids out on bikes here recently (and they and the skateboards never went away entirely).

Even better, on the bike trails I'm seeing more young kids with their parents, riding bikes rather than sitting in trailers.

[nylonstrung]

You touched on why this is such a big deal in the US specifically- it's a ripple effect of excessive tort law amoung other things