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

afterbabel.com

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

#111
post #93

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…

Thanks for sharing your story, it’s wonderful, seems very similar to how we grew up. We have a 6 yo who does get daily outdoor time but that is supervised because it wouldn’t be possible otherwise, we live in NYC. My son does get screen time only 2 hours on weekends, at this point the cat’s out of the bag. We’ll just try to keep the screen time limited to 2 hours per week.

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

#112
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the US and my kids walk and bike to school. You're making wide generalizations across a large country.

Where is this?

Also interested to know, sounds like a nice region.

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

#113
post #102
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]

Nonsense. Crime has been continuously dropping since the 60s. What has changed is kids would rather spend time on their phones, online and playing video games.

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

#114
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 ).

We need reforms to the method the EPA uses to calculate and enforce fuel efficiency requirements. It's the direct driver of the gigantifucation of vehicles.

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

#115
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…

I always wonder if part of it is how much we move around for life these days. We travel away from our home towns for college, the somewhere else in many cases for work where we have kids without our parents around to help.

Let this happen to enough people constantly coming and going and moving…the community is gone. It’s just a cumulative effect.

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ).

We need reforms to the method the EPA uses to calculate and enforce fuel efficiency requirements. It's the direct driver of the gigantifucation of vehicles.

Simplest thing to do would be to just tax weight (at time of purchase and yearly) and require commercial license (only obtainable with demonstrable justification like running a business that requires hauling loads every day)

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

#117
post #88
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this?

Most suburbs are like this.

Maybe a tiny part of a suburb where you're not just near both the school and grocery store but it's nice to walk there and you're not crossing major roads. So, a tiny fraction of the US population.

Either way, some Americans will hear people talk about Europe or Japan or whatever and tell themself "I totally have that too where I live in the US" yet it's not even close.

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

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ).

We need reforms to the method the EPA uses to calculate and enforce fuel efficiency requirements. It's the direct driver of the gigantifucation of vehicles.

People's desires are the direct driver of gigantification of vehicles. I assure you nobody buying a RAM or F150 gives two shits about EPA or fuel efficiency.

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

#119
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…

The physical environment from my childhood was substantially “worse” than what exists now. I don’t remember really ever going to a park, and the playgrounds that existed were full of [fun] death traps.

When I got older and rode my bike everywhere there was not a SINGLE bike lane anywhere in my entire town, and the sidewalks were disused and crappy.

And yet: we were outside playing CONSTANTLY.

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

#120
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

That’s because they’re still far better drivers than us.
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