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> TLDR: avoid the suburbs if you want your kids to run free. A lot of the decline in free-range childhood clicked into place once I realized just how terrible suburbs are for little kids. The roads are the worst part - wide, empty streets that invite speeding, connectivity that make them short-cuts for outside drivers, lots of bends and bushes that obscure the view. But they're not the only major issue. Suburbs are usually built for cars, meaning no sidewalks or bike lanes, just a choice between walking in the road and upsetting the neighbors with their manicured lawns. They're usually fully developed, meaning no woods or fields to play in. And they're privatized, meaning no sports fields, no open grass for games unless the neighbors approve, not even any parking lots for safer street ball. They're featureless, so littler kids can't find their street or house in a maze of HOA-mandated similarity. And while our fears of crime are exaggerated, they're perversely insecure, combining a rural lack of bystanders with urban anonymity. My run-down, dead-end street growing up seems weirdly idyllic in hindsight. Speeding was impossible, no one but the residents had a reason to drive through, every house looked different, there were trees to climb and a bit of undeveloped land at the end of the road. Even the neighbors who hated kids and each other had to use spite fences and complaining, not impersonal HOA crackdowns. But of course, there have been plans to suburb-ify it for decades now... |
Many a time in the 'burbs, were we playing a game in the street only to quickly scatter to the shout of "Car!", followed by a hasty resumption of whatever we were doing.
There was generally 1 or 2 streets of particular note that you just knew to avoid or not play in due to the fact that it was commonly used as a sacrificial throughway.
And homogeneity? That was half of what taught us how to navigate. You do it based off of street signs. The kids who can't read shouldn't be wandering the streets necessarily anyway, and there was generally enough web of trust in the immediate vicinity where even if you couldn't get home, you could find an adult or another kid to point you in the right direction.
None of what you brought up really strikes me as a problem. It was just normal life skills.