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How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

freerangekids.com

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Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#461

Post by dragonwriter »

Arizhel wrote: post #459
couchand wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a few months ago I bought several cartons of berries at a honor system you-pick farm. To be fair that was in Vermont, which probably isn't representative of the whole of the United States. For that matter, I regularly see schoolchildren riding the New York City subway accompanied only by their friends...

To be fair, NYC is very, very different from the rest of the US. Reading over many of these comments, the people saying that kids can't roam in their areas are living in suburban places where you need a car to go anywhere, and it's simply not safe as a pedestrian. NYC is not like this: everyone takes the subway or walks all over the place there, and many people do not have cars, or use them within the city if they do…

> Reading over many of these comments, the people saying that kids can't roam in their areas are living in suburban places where you need a car to go anywhere, and it's simply not safe as a pedestrian.

It's safer as a pedestrian in the suburbs than in urban environments, which is one of the reasons people move to suburbs to raise kids. In fact, one of the reasons public transit doesn't work in suburbs and you need a car to get anywhere out of your residential neighborhood is that suburbs are usually designed to limit both traffic volume and traffic speed in residential neighborhoods (which typically include small parks and other facilities specifically for for kids) to provide pedestrian safety (which has a side effect of requiring longer, both in road distance and time, trips to anywhere else than straight-libe distance would suggest, and making efficient public transit routes impractical where this is done through branching designs without connecting loops, and making distances impractical for walking out of the neighborhood to other areas -- though this is sometimes, in better suburbs, mitigated by walking/bike paths which make non-carbonated distances closer to straight-line than the motor vehicle routes.)

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#462

Post by balabaster »

baursak wrote: post #457
balabaster wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work: This is a matter of priority... you can always find ways to pay the bills and put food on the table. It might not be doing exactly what you love, or it may be. There are ways to make almost anything work if you spend the graft making a name for yourself. You're right, it's frequently easier, dare I say simple to find a comfortable job doing what you love in the city. I'm at a point now where I have enough of a…

Thanks for your response. One thing I got curious about -- are you aware of any liberal or socialist leaning communities in rural Canada?

Most of Canada is pretty liberal leaning... especially since the Harper Government was ousted. Most of the country seem to like Trudeau pretty well.

Many of the more European leaning communities are much more inclusive of neighbours needs and looking after each other which is a more socialist type trait.

Let me clarify, when I say socialist, I don't mean the brand of socialism that's sold by American propaganda in the way Communism was in the 60's which caused everyone to be terrified of it. I mean the brand of socialism where everyone is not only happy to contribute and be taxed for the good of their community, to improve infrastructure, hospitals, education, waste services, emergency services etc. but they feel it's their duty to their community and do it proudly. Everyone feels it's their duty to ensure that nobody is left behind and mucks in to make it so.

Conservative everyone-out-for-themselves-and-fuck-everyone-else attitudes tends to be a much more American stance on Conservatism, even Conservatives here in Canada tend to be much more community minded and inclusive - it's enshrined in the culture here, "immigration and diversity is our strength." Especially in communities with a large youth contingent.

I'm guessing, so please take this with a grain of salt: I would say look at the age demographics of a community, the lower the median age, I would wager, the more likely the community is to lean more moderately or towards liberal or socialist ideals.

It has been my experience that French communities tend to lean more heavily towards the ideals of France, which are more socialist in that respect and the Polish people I know also seem to lean more heavily towards the ideals of Poland, which being European isn't a world different. Immigrants (in my experience) tend to favour what they grew up with and know. As an immigrant myself, I can understand that sentiment.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#463

Post by TulliusCicero »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #436
baursak wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up "white flight". http://www.alternet.org/story/65404/the_future_of_cities%3A_...

Ah, I stand corrected. Thank you.

To a certain extent you have to read between the lines, people aren't usually gonna come out and say, "Yes, these regulations are to prevent minorities and the poor from coming to my neighborhood." But that's kind of the obvious takeaway from, say, zoning regulations that mandate houses/lot sizes of a minimum large size: they make it so that a lower-middle class family can't enter an upper-middle class neighborhood by simply purchasing a smaller house on a smaller plot of land.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#464

Post by drdeadringer »

FrancoDiaz wrote: post #10

I have a 4 year old, in my mid 40s, and think about this a lot for some reason. In the 70s during the summer, when I was around 7, we would wake up, eat breakfast, go out and about wherever we wanted, come back for lunch, out again, come back for dinner, and then out again past dark to play flashlight tag. I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff…

How does the US have a "nanny-state government" regarding child rearing?

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#465

Post by throwanem »

jimmaswell wrote: post #458
throwanem wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might argue that the correct lesson to draw, from a broken bone got by doing something stupid on a bike, is not that one shouldn't ride a bike, but rather that one shouldn't do something stupid. That's the lesson I drew from it, anyway. I'd be curious to know how old you were when you did the damnfool thing, and how your folks reacted to it. I was eleven or twelve and mine were generally unsympathetic, which suit…

About 5. They pretty much blamed the kids present/the parent. They apparently biked down that all the time but also had a lot more bicycle experience.

That's a very different situation indeed! I can see how it'd put you off cycling, too. But, again, I'd hesitate to generalize.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#466

Post by MK999 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #317
FrancoDiaz wrote: post #10

I have a 4 year old, in my mid 40s, and think about this a lot for some reason. In the 70s during the summer, when I was around 7, we would wake up, eat breakfast, go out and about wherever we wanted, come back for lunch, out again, come back for dinner, and then out again past dark to play flashlight tag. I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff…

There have been vast societal changes too (in the UK). 30-40 years ago a lot of residential streets would have parents home during the day. That doesn't seem true now. I was allowed to roam as a child. But was in a village area where all the families knew each other, primarily because mother's were home with their kids for 5 years of their lives at least.

Great point, I've not seen this point mentioned elsewhere in these types of discussions.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#467

Post by oftenwrong »

stuckagain wrote: post #105
kuschku wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if your city is built vertically, but with lots of forests throughout it.

That's very rare. American cities are built on "free market" principles as distorted by politics. They are not built for livability, beauty, or any other quantitative or qualitative measure. I personally advocate for this type of development, but it's unlikely that I will ever see it built: http://carfree.com/topology.html

There's a critique of that design on new world economics:

http://newworldeconomics.com/lets-kick-around-carfree-com/

I think the author did a poor job of arguing there compared to his usual articles, but he does make some decent points.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#468

Post by vkou »

Arizhel wrote: post #450
vkou wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living a subsistence lifestyle is very low. Land in the middle of nowhere is cheap, and property taxes are almost non-existant, you don't need to pay 25% of the turnips you grow to the state as an income tax, and gasoline is very cheap in the US. There's that whole big-corporation medical care business, but if you're willing to forego it, the dream can be yours - for much less then the cost of a small sub…

>Land in the middle of nowhere is cheap, and property taxes are almost non-existant Housing is not cheap, no matter where you go in the US. Sure, the land it sits on may be cheaper in some places, but the cost of building materials is the same everywhere, and houses have to be built to code, and old houses that aren't maintained well enough get condemned so you're not allowed to live in them. Of course, you can alway…

Most of the cost of housing is in labor, not building materials. And, as you said, there's always the trailer. It'll be cold in the winter, though.

My parents do part-time homesteading (My father works - he will retire in a few years) - and they only need to go into town once a month for staples - supplemental chicken feed, milk, fertilizer, etc. Fuel economy isn't that big a deal.

The ACA tax is based on your income. If you have no income, the tax is tiny.

No, of course you can't start all that having nothing. However, most of the posters on HN are more then able to save up to afford this life.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#469

Post by djsumdog »

chimprich wrote: post #363
jimmaswell wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise is overwhelmingly dwarfed by calorie consumption, in terms of weight. Not eating an apple is about equivalent to running an entire mile. Most likely your cousins just had a worse diet. Exercise as a weight loss solution is essentially a lie sold by con artists - you can't outrun a bad diet, as they say.

Sounds like someone thinking of an excuse not to exercise :) A quick Google suggests running a mile burns about 100 calories and an apple is about 50. In a more general sense, you can't really compare the two. You can't say exercise is "dwarfed" by consumption because they're not on the same scale; unless you're talking about, say, perceived willpower of eating less versus exercising more.

How was measure calories is terrible. Carbs should be measured different from calories. If you cut out bread, pasta, soda and other major sources of starches and sugars (you can keep fiber and sugar alcohols), weight loss and overall health greatly improve.

Exercising is good and healthy for you. You should do it. But you won't loose weight by it. Your diet is way more important.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#470

Post by eru »

nvarsj wrote: post #293
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 y…

This is very true in London, unfortunately. Cars destroy the city - both by polluting it, and making walking and biking dangerous. Boris Johnson's goal as mayor was to optimise traffic flow through London, which just encouraged more cars. Going to a city like Cambridge where the center is shut down to cars is quite eye opening - lots of kids and people walking and biking. In London it's just a sea of cars driving and…

You complain about London---and I just moved from Sydney to London and enjoy the relative pedestrian-friendliness here compared to that car-centric hellhole down-under.
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