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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

#211

Post by vjk800 »

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…

After-WW2 development has been largely the same everywhere - more cars, wider roads, etc. Also in Europe and Japan cities an neighbourhoods that were built after WW2 are often very hostile to pedestrians while those built before are walkable.

The biggest cities of Europe (Paris, Amsterdam, etc.) are pretty historical and thus are walkable. However, where I live - Finland that is - much of the country has been built in the past century and is designed for cars. However, in the past decade or two the trend has changed again and the very new neighbourhoods again feel like 100+ year old neighbourhoods in terms of walkability.

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

#212

Post by soco »

bilbo0s wrote: post #76
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my prewar non-car-centric city, kids still walk to school. They don't play outside like previous generations. You'll see the Christmas bikes for a few weeks when it's warm enough in late spring then nothing all summer long.

As a parent, I can tell you video games and smart phones have a lot to do with this.

When I grew up we were a lot on the streets but there was simply nothing else to do, for better or for worse. I mean "no screens" wasn't a policy which got dropped, it was just the way it was. So maybe we're also having some nostalgia in this discussion: "in my times" looks always rosier than it actually was.

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

#213

Post by jfim »

shiroiushi wrote: post #186
denkmoon wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the most frugal and businesses are thinking about that tariff. Ads for these excessively large "utility" vehicles (which have sacrificed bed size for cabin comfort and are often not 4WD) are very indicative. They don't talk about price (and when they do, it's focused on credit terms rather than the capital cost). They talk about power, lifestyle, and giving the perception of masculinity. That is why people buy t…

That's part of it, but not all: it depends on the buyer. People buying big trucks as a fashion statement are definitely doing it for this reason, but there's people who genuinely need trucks, and they're all bitching and complaining about 1) trucks costing $50k-100k because they're basically luxury vehicles and they don't make cheap, utilitarian versions any more, and also because all those fashion-statement buyers h…

There's the Ford Maverick that starts at $24k and is relatively small.

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

#214

Post by thayne »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #117
ars wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know what the percentage is, but having a school within walking or biking distance is definitely not uncommon in US suburbs. At least in the areas I've lived (in multiple parts of the country), schools are generally built close to large neighborhoods, and have dedicated infrastructure to help kids walk to school. Grocery stores are less likely to be within walking distance. But then, even if I could walk to a grocery store, I'm not sure I'd want to, because I would be limited by how much I can carry back, which means I'd have to go shopping more often.

Conversely, I have traveled to Europe and Japan. At least in the areas I went to, it didn't really seem any safer for kids to play outside than many parts of America. Yes, public transit was much better, but there were still lots of cars on the streets, and there were areas that weren't very pedestrian friendly. And in some cities it was quite difficult to find playgrounds. I don't doubt that there are places in Europe and Japan where kids can play outside without worrying about cars. But such conditions are not universal.

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

#215

Post by Moldoteck »

pedroma wrote: post #208
Moldoteck wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be one of the reasons, but maybe you should compare deaths caused by dangerous drug addicts vs cars in the us? To get a perspective P.s. - Netherlands does have a drug addicts problem too and still, kids there somehow do have much more freedom compared to us

I don't think it makes sense to compare deaths by cars to deaths by dangerous drug addicts for the same reason it doesn't make sense to compare death by cars to death by molestation.

we are talking about dangers for kids. How many kids were killed+mutilated+lifetime injuries by cars vs drug addicts(deaths+other impacts)? I didn't add the consequences from heavy pollution, but you can add them too in the second step if you want

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

#216

Post by thayne »

kstenerud wrote: post #203
hombre_fatal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup, in every European or Japanese town or city I've lived in (with the exception of one very small and isolated town), I never bothered getting a car. Everything was close enough to walk to (usually 2-5 minutes walk), and for things that were too far, I'd take the tram or train. I've also lived in a few American cities, and it's a completely different experience. Even from downtown Philly it was inconvenient to get…

There's a big difference between "Everything was close enough to walk to" and the schools is close enough to walk to.

In my experience, if you live in a suburb you do usually have to drive to get to things like stores, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. But what is close are schools and playgrounds. In the suburb I currently live, all three levels of schools and over half a dozen playgrounds are within walking distance.

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

#217

Post by sagarm »

jjav wrote: post #210
trgn wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. in suburbs, cul-de-sac neighborhoods and such, you'll still see kids, but only within that fishbowl. It's the core areas where kids are gone. Traffic is also much nastier there. lots of intersections, vagrants skulking around, more through traffic .. much more of an antisocial vibe in general, hard to put your finger on. I think that's why the difference with europe is so stark. You go visit, and you'll be in…

> In the usa, kids only roam free in secluded pockets, far away from the "real" city. The discussion is about suburbs, so by definition it is away from the city core. Here in our (US, California) suburb it is wonderfully walkable for kids and adults alike. For kids, there is very little traffic since only local neighborhood traffic is present unlike in cities. There are bike/walk trails around and across. Multiple pl…

That is not how the majority of cul-de-sac subdivisions work in the American South. There are certainly not a bunch in amenities within a 10 minute walk -- usually you can't even leave the subdivision in that time on foot, let alone safely walk to the nearby gas station on a 40mph road with no sidewalk or shoulder.

Where are these magical subdivisions with city-like access to amenities?

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

#218

Post by orwin »

vjk800 wrote: post #211
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…

After-WW2 development has been largely the same everywhere - more cars, wider roads, etc. Also in Europe and Japan cities an neighbourhoods that were built after WW2 are often very hostile to pedestrians while those built before are walkable. The biggest cities of Europe (Paris, Amsterdam, etc.) are pretty historical and thus are walkable. However, where I live - Finland that is - much of the country has been built i…

Exactly, it's the same in France, although it started in the 90s (late 80s maybe) and ended after 2010, so we screwed up less neighborhoods than say, Netherlands, but we're 10 years behind into the rehabilitation of local communities. But any neighborhood built between 1990 and 2008 is often souless, car dependent and look like US suburbia (I lived in one)

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

#219

Post by DonHopkins »

swayvil wrote: post #84
overstay8930 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most parents in Europe would not let their kids walk alone to school lol, maybe outside of large cities but it is not the norm anymore.

Is "lol" really appropriate in this context? Theses days it seems more like a nervous tic.

"Lucifer Our Lord"

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

#220

Post by piva00 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #109
wincy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

For fucks sake, she's 9 years old, let a kid be a kid and not a productivity machine, she will have her whole life to worry about that later... At that age the worse that can happen academically speaking is taking a bit longer to learn how to multiply and divide numbers.

At that age is easy to pick up bad habits and also easy to let them go, OP seems to be a good enough parent to nudge their kid into better habits if they deem necessary.

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