I feel like the problem though is that people don’t trust their community, and they don’t trust that the kids will be safe.
If the child’s playground is right next to a block of houses and shops with people walking around all day, it is much less likely that the child is taken away. Whether it’s actually safer, I’m not entirely sure, but it definitely feels safer to have your kid playing near a busy pedestrian area, compared to an abandoned playground down a quiet road at 4pm. And the feeling is what matters regardless.
And that is a big part, but also just the feeling of trusting your neighbors increases when you live in a walkable place and see your neighbors all the time. [0] That source isn’t maybe the most thorough, but it echoes my experience of moving to a quiet but walkable neighborhood in the Netherlands from the US. People really do trust their neighbors much more here, and I’ve changed in that regard too. Everyone is always offering to help each other out.
>You could create the most walkable neighbourhood in the world and not achieve much in this regard.
As always, giving into hysteria only leads to more hysteria.
The massive expansion of the rights of angry Karens to summon State guns on command that occurred somewhere in the 1980s is why the current homebuying generation doesn't care about "walkability" in the first place: the generations that grew up under those conditions have simply adapted with mansion-sized homes because if you don't have a private version of what used to be a third space free from Karen's prying eyes, you don't get a space at all.
It shouldn't be lost on anyone that the people who most want walkable neighborhoods "for the children" are also the people who are going to destroy those benefits once they see the results of the other things they vote for on the street outside "for the children's safety". So no, I see no reason to build things the way they want and agree that tendency towards isolation is mainly because by and large we remain rich enough to avoid addressing the elephant in the room.
The way parents interpreted the poll is not "Given a hypothetical park somewhere in the world, should..."
But rather "Given the current state of parks in America, should..."
The parents are most likely right, it currently probably is unsafe for kids to be alone in public parks.
But that is not because american parents hold dogmatic beliefs about kid independence, they're just making a judgement call based on how unsafe parks currently are.
"Free" is probably the wrong word. They get to do that in places that have a strong social fabric. The diversity of America combined with a capitalism-induced culture of pitting people against each other makes that impossible in the US.
I think the idea here is that children need to have the opportunity to explore the wider world independently, not just a 50 metre circle around their home.
Playing in your yard isn't really "minimal supervision". You probably just didn't know how often your parents checked on you. And you would have known that your parent could just look outside and see you.
As a 8 or 9-year-old, could you go to a friends house, to the store, or to school without parental supervision?
Did you have safe bike lanes to do this? Was there safe public transportation? Sidewalks on busier streets? Safe crosswalks where the cars are supposed to stop by law - and are those laws enforced heavily to keep you safe? Could you play independently outside of your yard?
I live in the USA and we picked our neighborhood specifically because of these things.
My kid has been going to her friend’s houses by herself since she was 5. She goes down the block (sometimes a couple of blocks! Friends of friends) to her friend’s houses. I feel like we changed the culture in the neighborhood. Kids come out and go to our house and other houses all the time. It’s a good, safe neighborhood.
Of course it just takes a few people to screw this up. Some busybody lady who felt the need to tell us she was a foster mom (okay? Maybe trying to signal what a moral person and upstanding person she was?) called CPS on us saying we were “neglecting” our child which meant a visit to verify we were not abandoning our child on the street. She later lost her job and had to move away, let me tell you I was very sad to hear it. To avoid such spurious accusations, we got our daughter an Apple Watch with cellular service, which we generally use to call her when it gets dark out.
She’s eight now, and went to Walmart by herself earlier this year several times on her bike to buy a few things. I was very proud of her!
This is extremely important to us that she be able to have this autonomy. It’s definitely not the default, though. There are a half dozen or more kids that regularly dip in and out of our house. It’s sad that some parents absolutely don’t allow their children out of their sight. There are kids just next door my daughter basically never sees because they aren’t allowed to leave their houses, despite being the same age as my kid.
It does seem that women are by far the biggest offenders in this space. They're also the biggest consumers of murder/mystery and true crime podcasts & media.
I wonder if any studies have looked into why women are reacting like this more and more.
I'd like that sort of neighborhood as well, but other than sidewalks and perhaps a nearby park it seems difficult to gauge character like that until you live there. And there are lots of neighborhoods that have the objective basics (sidewalks, low crime, etc).
You know hindsight is 20/20, I may be puffing up how much “research” we did. There was a lady having a garage sale with some kids the day we looked at houses, my daughter now plays at that house almost every day, we drove around the neighborhood once or twice and saw kids playing outside, we knew the city was one of the safest around. It was the most expensive house we could “afford” (not really) at 30 after our first daughter had been born. The other candidate house was in an older neighborhood and we watched someone being arrested at the gas station down the street, which turned us off to the place.
It is still US suburbia, but as I said it’s an “if you build it, they will come” type situation and during the summertime we see kids (early tweens) with electric scooters or electric bikes going by themselves or with small groups of friends to the shops nearby (stuff being close enough to do this, although walking is maybe a little bit of a trek). Twenty years ago when it was built, this house wouldn’t have had all the accommodations nearby, as they’ve been built since.
I do think that us taking a principled stand on “we will not be bullied, and it is a goal for our kid to be able to be independent in the neighborhood” has helped. I know 100% the Indian girl down the street’s mother initially had a rule she couldn’t go play but she said “but mom, the girl down the street can go everywhere!” and now she’s out playing almost every day. All the kids have the “be home by dark” rule. It’s also astounding how diverse the neighborhood is, her friends are mostly first or second generation Americans with professional parents, from India, Argentina, Mexico, and Vietnam. It’s really great to see all the girls becoming good friends.
I grew up in a small town where everybody drove everywhere and bike lane did not exist, but as a kid we grew up biking on the roads or walking around. Our typical soccer pitch was a partly secluded street, and getting the ball stuck under a car was the norm.
Now in my home town there are zero kids on the street. Culture has shifted drastically.
Most places I've seen, yes in the US, have bike paths, and houses are typically in a separate area from main thoroughfares. Why wouldn't a kid bike to a friend's house, or a local park?
I live in a decently nice neighborhood in San Jose. Houses $2-3m. People constantly run the stop signs, they don't slow down at all, 30-40mph. I've only lived here one month and I already saw a car hit a pedestrian on a scooter at an intersection (and the guy just drove off).
That's not really a bike path, now is it? It's a painted lane on a road.
I've never been in a place where I had to take a "busy main road" to get around locally. Cross it sometimes, sure, which can be done at a light. This sort of highlights the problem. Over-protectiveness, by examining the worst that can happen, and the worst scenario.
I've been riding in a big west coast city for the better part of two decades, and I have definitely not been able to rely on dedicated bike paths (or even multimodal "trails") to get around. I mostly ride in the road, and often in the car lane rather than a paint-separated bike lane when I judge that the latter is unsafe (can happen for various reasons but mostly conflicts with cars turning right, pulling out, etc.).
Despite that, I've avoided bad accidents and generally felt pretty safe, but only because I survived long enough to develop an acute intuition for when drivers are about to do something stupid/illegal/dangerous. Previous and contemporaneous experience driving a car on the same streets was also very important. I would not trust these streets with my daughter's safety on a bike, and I honestly won't trust her to read the idiots' minds until she has some experience doing so from inside a heavy steel cage.
Riding within neighborhoods like the one I live in now is a different question, though some people do drive quite fast through here, and the size of the typical modern car makes clearances and sight-lines rather tight. I do see a lot of older kids out on their own walking, often to and from school, which I think is great.
I've been riding in a big west coast city for the better part of two decades, and I have definitely not been able to rely on dedicated bike paths (or even multimodal "trails") to get around.
Fair enough, but that's not what I said. I said locally, and neighbourhood. You elude to this later in your comment, but it seems unjust to reply, and refue my comment, while changing scope.
These are kids. They can bike locally to friends houses, or a corner store, or a non-central local strip mall, without hitting main roads.
Which you in fact agree with, later in your comment!
It doesn't need to be all or nothing, people. Biking in local neighbourhoods can be safe, and it can still be dicey on the main roads.
My street is fine. But it’s a quarter mile long, and the road it connects to is nearly impassable for pedestrians or bikes. The road is narrow, curvy with steep 5-20 ft high wooded or fenced hills on either side. It has no shoulder. It’s technically a 35mph road, but cars can come around the bend at 35-50 mph at any time and you have nowhere to go. You just have to trust that they will see you and not hit you.
Never seen a bike path in any neighborhood in the part of the US I live in. I'm sure they exist somewhere, but they are definitely not common. The are bike paths in downtown areas, but not in the suburbs.
Statistically speaking, roads are quickly becoming more and more unsafe for drivers, let alone pedestrians and bikers. Cars are much larger than they were in 90s, people are driving more recklessly than ever and enforcement of traffic laws is at an all time minimum.
A lot of the people espousing the whole free range parenting stuff never actually walk around and understand what the pedestrian experience is like. If they did, they'd be strongly advocating for better road design and pedestrian paths. But you rarely see the two groups intersect.
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According to this poll from 2014, 43% Americans think that the government should require 12-year-olds to play at public parks under supervision.
You could create the most walkable neighbourhood in the world and not achieve much in this regard.