[valleyjo]

I grew up in a suburb development where you couldn’t walk to anything. It was pretty isolated, until I had a car it was difficult for me to visit friends or do anything outside the house. I’m now living in an area that’s super walkable and has a community feel. My young kids bike every day to one of the four playgrounds nearby. They see friends every day too even if it’s just when they walk by our house. For me it highlights how lonely and isolating the suburb experience can be I don’t think I could go back to that and having experienced it the other way I would not want that for my kids.

[matwood]

Maybe our definitions of suburb are different. I live in what I would consider a suburb now. I see kids outside playing every day. I see teens playing basketball and tennis at the neighborhood courts. And, now that it's warming up, people at the pool. There is a grocery store at the entrance to the neighborhood, but for anything else someone would have to drive. I just fail to see how the local kids are harmed or isolated.

[alamortsubite]

Some American suburbs are set up in the way you describe, but in my experience they're a tiny minority. A simple test is whether or not kids can walk to school. If not, how are they able visit their friends from school who don't live in the same development? Are they safely able to walk or ride bikes, or are they isolated by car infrastructure that makes them dependent on parents driving them around? It sucks not being able to visit your friends.

[nytesky]

We can walk to our local elementary, but about half the kids can’t, but we live in a very walkable neighborhood (my kids can walk to a grocery store, Starbucks, toy store, library, chipotle, tennis courts, basketball courts, baseball field).

But all our schools are fairly large, 600 elem, 1000 middle, 3000 high school, so even with density friends are far flung.

Smaller schools would help, but now it’s hard to build more schools because of that density! (There used to be more elem schools but they closed a bunch when GenX went thru and school population dropped temporarily)

[l72]

It is important to differentiate between suburbs and sprawl. Many of the old suburbs are still dense, walkable, have a diverse mix of single and multi family housing with some small retail scattered in. However, that is not what most people think about when they think about American suburbs.

[bluGill]

Lot sizes have not changed between old suburbs and new for the most part. sure there are some mansion lots around but look at all suburbs in a better sample.

[bitwize]

Even in the suburb suburbs, a lot of households had kids, and they would get together and bike around, play basketball in the cul-de-sac, or just go to each other's houses and hang out. I lived way out in the bush comparatively speaking where the nearest neighbor was like a quarter mile away, and I used to envy those suburban kids.

Then I guess some time ago that all stopped, and the late millennial/zoomer /r/fuckcars bughive lovers are all like "it's the suburbs, man, the suburbs killed childhood".

[The_Colonel]

Fertility rate dropped, parents are more anxious to let kids roam, kids now have a lot of alternatives to spending time outdoors. There are just fewer kids around, and this drop is then amplified by suburbs' low density.

[john_the_writer]

In an Australian Suburb right now. Closest store is 2km. Closest skate park is about 3km (2miles). No basketball or tennis within 15km(10miles)

TBH, I think we all wish we lived in what you're describing, but most of us live miles from anything we'd consider a playable area.

[financetechbro]

This should be obvious but not all suburbs are created equal. Check out Florida suburbs to get a feel for what hell is

[082349872349872]

The theory in my country is that if the roads ever aren't safe enough for kids to be walking/biking to school, they'd need to be made so.

[defrost]

Unless that requires culling magpies.

If there are magpies about it's every child | cyclist for themselves.

[082349872349872]

The magpies were there before the roads, so even if the land title registry doesn't explicitly note it, their ancient usage since time immemorial means under common law that they have swoop-of-way.