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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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares that the city administration is too stupid to put in traffic lights. Seriously, what a dumb example. The problem has already been solved. My city is full of cars, but there are also enough traffic lights triggered by pedestrian s, hardly a miracle of modern engineering.

> Who cares that the city administration is too stupid to put in traffic lights. The people living there? > The problem has already been solved. Yes, that's why the poster said "in the US they would be roadkill". It's very much a solved problem; the US is notable for not implementing the solutions.

If people lobbying their local government for traffic lights is enough to solve a problem it can't be that relevant.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who cares that the city administration is too stupid to put in traffic lights. The people living there? > The problem has already been solved. Yes, that's why the poster said "in the US they would be roadkill". It's very much a solved problem; the US is notable for not implementing the solutions.

If people lobbying their local government for traffic lights is enough to solve a problem it can't be that relevant.

Except it often doesn't work that way.

NYC was all ready to implement a congestion fee, with years of buildup and $15B in revenue scheduled for use... and the state governor nixed the entire at the eleventh hour by fiat, because out-of-NYC voters who shouldn't have a say don't like the concept.

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

#393
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started the thread, I am and grew up in euro, have lived in Japan and North America a well. It's not a fantasy, it's lived experience and hard data.

I have never entered the US, but have been to many of the larger European cities. None of them came close to what Americans on /r/fuckcars are fantasizing about, when they talk about Europe. If they post pictures it is almost always of the few square kilometers of the city where millionaires and shops for millionaires are located. The rest of the city is full of streets and cars are everywhere. The one difference is…

It's true all of Europe doesn't look like that, but the difference is real and shouldn't be underestimated. Even in most European single family home suburbs, you can usually walk, bike or transit to nearby schools, supermarket, the odd cafe and restaurant. Ie what's being said isn't that Europe is devoid of cars, it's that it isn't exclusively designed for cars to the point where you cannot exist without one.

In a huuuuge share of the US, this is not the case. There are no sidewalks, you have to travel extremely far to get to anything, and cross highways or even freeways doing it. There's no transit. There's no village center or train station around a natural focal point, just giant strip malls that are few and far between. So EVERYONE. MUST. DRIVE. It is the ONLY option for every trip and errand, there is no alternative. This is insane.

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

#394
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is however an impression in fairly substantial parts of society that it's gotten worse, and that impression might well have a greater effect than the actual rate on some people's behaviours.

Can you find a source for this claim for European countries? I personally can't but maybe my scholar foo is bad.

For which claim? That people have an impression that things have gotten worse? You look at our recent European elections and how much of the campaigning was on law and order and the perception of the collapse of society.

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

#395
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Children, even teenagers, account for a very small portion of pedestrian deaths. Arguably this is because they're kept indoors, but the 20-25 age bracket is the second least likely to die as a pedestrian, despite being young and (stereotypically) dumb and reckless at that age. On the other hand, 25-35 are the most likely to get hit.

Some other interesting statistics: 25% of pedestrians killed were drunk, while only 19% of the time the driver was (these overlap, both drunk, in 6% of cases.) 3/4ths of pedestrian fatalities occur at night. 2/3rds don't occur in a crosswalk.

Take away: kids who don't drink, don't stay out at night and use crosswalks are significantly less likely to be hit.

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/pedestr...

https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Ped-Spotli...

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

#396
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 agree with this for the most part but it doesn't explain everything.

The town I grew up in has a lot of areas that are conducive to children roaming; low traffic speeds and volume, separated sidewalks, parks, green spaces. As kids we ran around freely. The traffic volume and patterns haven't really changed at all and as a whole the community drives pretty slowly, nobody seems to be in a hurry. Yet you never see kids out anymore. Where did they go?

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

#397
post #87
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…

I lived in Japan for five years and I don't agree with you.

There's plenty of shit drivers there as everywhere but the physical environment (not the least of which street parking not being a thing) enables people to exist a lot more safely and conveniently outside of a car than in the US and the data bears that out. Eg narrow roads improves safety for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists alike.

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

#398
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manufacturer should be jointly liable for producing a defective vehicle.

I don't think you can legally sell a new small vehicle in the US, so the root cause is legislation that prevents this. I believe that if you could legally produce kei sized vehicles in the US, there would be a massive market for it, especially in urban environments. And I'm sure US manufacturers would be happy to sell them to all comers. Edit: Basically any car from Suzuki would be a hit in the US: https://www.suzuki…

[deleted]

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

#399
post #207

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. I've learned from HN discussions that there is a vast difference in what people think of as a "suburb". Some will say it takes over 30 minutes by car from a suburb to the nearest store. To me that's very rural, I'd never consider that a suburb. But some do. So we get these disconnected discussion on how…

> To me that's very rural That's the idea if used in the North American sense. Suburbs are effectively rural areas, except with a higher population density. You will see rows of houses instead of rows of corn, but otherwise no different. > Places with single family homes and parks and playgrounds where I can very easily walk to just about every store or service nearby. What's a town, then?

Suburbs are usually grafted onto towns (and within a few minutes of stores), not in the middle of nowhere. That would just be bizarre.

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People had no choice. When they come out with a new generation of car model they stop producing the old.

No choice? They can get Camry. Or van. Or wagon. Yet massive trucks have higher demand than ever.

I thought we were discussing how trucks like the f150 have swollen in size?
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