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Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

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Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#101

Post by lmm »

Dalewyn wrote: post #87
bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

>Because in the US they would be roadkill, Have you actually experienced Japanese drivers? They make American drivers look absolutely noble (and truthfully, we are) by comparison. For starters, and this applies to both individual and professional drivers: * They don't give way to emergency vehicles blaring the sirens. * They don't wait for people to finish crossing intersections. * They don't let other drivers into t…

None of that laundry list ultimately matters when Japanese speed limits are so much lower; speed is what kills. (Also, Japanese drivers are used to keeping their cars in lane, are used to sharing the road, and are driving much smaller and lighter vehicles). I suspect that what you perceive as "absurdly fast" is probably very different between those countries: because of the absurdly wide roads in the US, absurdly dangerous speeds get normalised. Someone doing 25% over the speed limit in Japan is still driving much slower than a driver in a comparable neighbourhood in the US.

> Some particularly busy intersections require dedicated police officer supervision to shepherd the drivers because they're so unruly and disrespectful of pedestrians and other drivers.

So like any intersection in New York.

> There are many reasons Japan is more accepting of letting children be children, but most of that is social factors and motivators that are decidedly different from American ones. Cars are ultimately just a really small part, if any.

Nah. It's cars, more specifically street parking.

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#102

Post by dgfitz »

bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

[flagged]

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#103

Post by nox101 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #87
bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

>Because in the US they would be roadkill, Have you actually experienced Japanese drivers? They make American drivers look absolutely noble (and truthfully, we are) by comparison. For starters, and this applies to both individual and professional drivers: * They don't give way to emergency vehicles blaring the sirens. * They don't wait for people to finish crossing intersections. * They don't let other drivers into t…

Lived in Japan 20 years and still spend ~2 months a year there including last month. Never experienced any of this except "most roads are very narrow" which is only semi-true. It's true many small roads are, um, small. But there are plenty of big roads as well.

I've never seen dedicated police supervision. I have seen directors around road construction. That's no different than in the states.

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#104

Post by bedobi »

carlosjobim wrote: post #89
bedobi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

guess what kills the most children, criminals or cars?

At a certain maturity, kids have developed mentally enough for cars to not be a threat to them. Criminals are a whole different problem.

Right, no teenagers or adults die by cars, for they have developed mentally enough for cars not to be a threat to them

…Except the 40 000 who do die by car, every single year, in the US alone. Countless more injured and permanently disabled. Meanwhile criminals are indeed a whole different problem. (an imaginary one)

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#106

Post by Foreignborn »

Dalewyn wrote: post #87
bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

>Because in the US they would be roadkill, Have you actually experienced Japanese drivers? They make American drivers look absolutely noble (and truthfully, we are) by comparison. For starters, and this applies to both individual and professional drivers: * They don't give way to emergency vehicles blaring the sirens. * They don't wait for people to finish crossing intersections. * They don't let other drivers into t…

What you're saying doesn't hold up.

Japan: > Road fatalities per 100 000 population: 2.6

USA: > Road fatalities per 100 000 population: 13.8

[0]https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/japan-road-safe... [1]https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit...

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#108

Post by bedobi »

crooked-v wrote: post #80
bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

My particular bugbear here is the absolutely insanity of truck and SUV heights, to the point that even full-grown adults are no longer clearly visible from inside new vehicles ( https://i.imgur.com/1dHWVxn.png ).

100% agree, and instead of showing any signs of stopping, the size increase is accelerating. Yesterday we used to joke about the trucks of today. Tomorrow, they will be twice as big.

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#109

Post by dyauspitr »

wincy wrote: post #93
grugagag wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still play outside like previous generations used to?

My daughter has been playing outside since she was 4 years old, unsupervised. She's 9 now. A lot of the other neighborhood kids have followed suit (I really suspect our "benign neglect" made the other parents thing "well if nothing bad happened to her our kids will be fine" and we have about 8-10 kids around the same age on the block that are constantly going to each other's houses and hanging out doing whatever it i…

9pm and you don’t know where your 9 year old is? That going too far in the other direction in my opinion. How is she doing academically? I feel like that much freedom, that early, makes it easy to pick up bad habits with the “bad” kids.

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#110

Post by bedobi »

dgfitz wrote: post #102
bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

[flagged]

what kills and harms the most kids, criminals or cars?

where do you think kids are safest, in public where people look out for them or by themselves in a deserted area?

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