[swatcoder]

Historically, people teach their kids how to navigate their local environment safely.

In rural environments, that can include wildlife dangers and natural hazards and in urban environments, it can include human dangers and industrial/sanitary hazards.

Environmental danger is not new. The culture of isolating kids rather than educating them is. Whether the new strategy is better for the kids is an open question, but seems crazy to some of us.

[wonderwonder]

I let my 11 year old ride his bike to the park, 7-11 etc on his own or with friends. I don't live in SF though. I think it's a little different when the danger is another human and they are mentally ill or addicted to drugs. You can tell the kids to stay away from them but the kids are kids they can't necessarily outsmart an adult looking to cause them harm.

Adults are killed by homeless people in SF. They are an irrational danger that is difficult to prepare for. There are also a lot of them. It's one thing to say if you see a homeless person stay away but it's another when there are dozens of them camped on the sidewalk. Telling my kids to instead walk in the road is not a great option either.

You are not wrong and 99% of the time doing as you suggest is valid. Hordes of crazy people are a danger of a different breed.

[rhino369]

>Historically, people teach their kids how to navigate their local environment safely.

And historically, society would drive insane and homeless people out of nice areas. Middle and upper middle class people weren't letting their kids hang out with drifters in the past.

[strix_varius]

As someone who plans to teach their kid to bike to school, walk to friends' houses, watch for cars, play safely in the yard, climb trees etc... Who has also lived in SF... There's no way I'd expose a kid to the dangers of walking around that city!

We left because my wife was terrified to be alone outside of our apartment. She would be followed, harassed, threatened. Because we saw crimes occur in broad daylight and experienced the indifference of police when we called.

Comparing the environmental danger of avoiding snakes and not diving into water where you can't see the bottom to navigating the streets of San Francisco as a small, alone human is ludicrous.

[nemo44x]

Historically a city would be run with order in mind but SF no longer is. It’s a lawless place without defined borders of what’s safe and what’s not. If SF could clean up its act then maybe it would be different. But it’s the same reason as the 1970s when parents in cities began having to shelter their kids more. We’ve just allowed to streets to be taken over by the mentally ill, drug addicted, and creeps and everything that comes with that.