Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

stevemagness.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 632 posts

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#321

Post by bluGill »

oersted wrote: post #263
smallerfish wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't resistance. It comes from development patterns. A developer buys 10 hectares of land and wants to max out the returns, so they pack it full of houses. Another developer buys the adjacent 20 hectares and follows the same strategy. Rinse and repeat. Purely market driven housing development orients towards developer profit, not long term quality of life of the neighborhoods being constructed.

I am sure that they could better maximize their returns by making room for local businesses and increasing the appeal of the area. And who says that a house will be worth more than a shop? It sounds more like “this is the way you do it” momentum.

You need about 10 houses per shop (anyone with better numbers? this works for discussion but it is likely wrong). However everybody needs many different shops and so it isn't a case of 10 houses 1 shop - since you always need to go elsewhere anyway wouldn't even think of the local shop when it would do and so they fail. Even in dense cities it is common to see one street of ground for retail then several streets of no retail.

Shops do better when clustered together. People combine trips and so if they need to go one place for any reason that will often enough "drop in" to a different one.

All this is to say, in most cases a shop is worth less than a house on those developments even though a shop would get higher rent when it is rented!

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#322

Post by skinfaxi »

ryandrake wrote: post #318
cbondurant wrote: post #296

I remember being young when "kids don't play in the yard anymore, they just play on their phone/consoles/computer" started to be a big talking point. Even then I recognized that the reason I was on the computer so much was, at least in part, because it was so much easier to hang out with my friends online than it was to coordinate with my parents to try and get travel to their house, or to convince my parents to let…

Good point about the proliferation of the absurd “crime” of loitering, which apparently just means “existing somewhere without spending money.” I remember being a teen in the 80s and what we did every day would be considered “loitering” today. There’s not much else for kids to do outside the home besides loiter.

I would be surprised if loitering laws are even enforceable today. I can see trespassing if you're asked to leave and don't, but getting arrested for being in one place too long? Especially a public place like a park? I'd donate to that gofundme. Kids could learn something from first amendment auditors and just start filming themselves in public.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#323

Post by elric »

cbondurant wrote: post #296

I remember being young when "kids don't play in the yard anymore, they just play on their phone/consoles/computer" started to be a big talking point. Even then I recognized that the reason I was on the computer so much was, at least in part, because it was so much easier to hang out with my friends online than it was to coordinate with my parents to try and get travel to their house, or to convince my parents to let…

> Then lets also add on how loitering is treated as such a great offense.

The Wikipedia page on Loitering [1] is wild. A surprisingly large number of places seem to have criminalised "just existing somewhere".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#324

Post by fusslo »

TrackerFF wrote: post #213

Did we stop letting kids leave the front yard, or did they simply stop doing that themselves? I grew up in the late 80s / early to mid 90s. We were allowed the roam around until dark. But that was also a more natural thing to do, as there weren't a whole lot of things to do inside (we had to ask very nicely if we could stay inside to play). But as I got into my teens, indoor activities became more accessible. Everyon…

Similar experience here. Lots of time spent outside until around 14, when I got my first self-built computer. After that more time was spent inside chatting with friends and playing games. It was self-isolation.

Of course around the same time my older brother, and all our friends were doing the same. So it was just natural to spend less time outside or hanging out with friends in person

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#325

Post by bluGill »

doctoboggan wrote: post #133
hibikir wrote: post #101

What I see in my deep suburbia is just far less interest in wandering past the front yard, because there's nothing to do: House after house where no front yard has anything for anyone, and quite long distances before you get somewhere you might be welcome, or have a chair. When my son, a pre-teen at the time went to Spain with me, things were quite different: A small town that even had stores targeting kids, places t…

> Build environments where children can be independent, and they might even want to be. We _have_ built these environments, you just choose not to live in them. Move to a city or other urban center. Your house might be smaller, and you might have to take public transit sometimes, but you will be happier and there will be no shortage of places for your kid to walk.

In most US cities the kid friendly places are the suburbs not the urban centers. Those suburbs require a car to do anything, but all the kids live there, and so all the things kids do are out there too.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#326

Post by throw0101c »

api wrote: post #310
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But life is full of safety vs. living tradeoffs. That's not even the issue. Suppose that more people wanted to live in a city than currently do. The market implies that -- the price per square foot is higher in cities. And that's the problem, when the city isn't allowed to grow. The existing city already has tall buildings, so if there is more demand than supply, to create more of it you need to add more somewhere…

I like to put it this way: The automobile, at least insofar as it impacts the urban landscape, is only incidentally about transportation. It's really about leverage in real estate markets. I think there's a tie-in between suburban sprawl and the explosion of the middle class. It allowed middle earners to escape the urban "law of rent." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent This is really what led me to stop being…

> I think there's a tie-in between suburban sprawl and the explosion of the middle class. It allowed middle earners to escape the urban "law of rent." […] This is really what led me to stop being an unreserved advocate for urbanism. The dark side of urbanism is that nobody but the property owners can accumulate wealth.

I do not understand: why did you stop being pro-urbanist? How does urbanism stop the middle class from accumulating wealth?

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#327

Post by AtomicOrbital »

children are pack animals ... as a kid the neighborhood was full of children and all of us had freedom to walk or when older ride our bikes anywhere always in a herd ... this is still the case in that tiny one red light village ... challenge is due to globalization most of the factories within driving distance have shuttered so working age adults have moved to where the jobs are leaving that village dominated by grandparents ... same freedom exists yet without the density of kids

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#328

Post by bluGill »

waterTanuki wrote: post #130
hibikir wrote: post #101

What I see in my deep suburbia is just far less interest in wandering past the front yard, because there's nothing to do: House after house where no front yard has anything for anyone, and quite long distances before you get somewhere you might be welcome, or have a chair. When my son, a pre-teen at the time went to Spain with me, things were quite different: A small town that even had stores targeting kids, places t…

Prior to the rise of the internet, suburbia was a lot more communal: block bbqs, kids playing at the neighbours house, checking out the newest game-station/toy/pool etc. Towns and cities with less car dependency more gracefully transitioned into the post-internet world, where 3rd places and community are easy to maintain since the library/bar/office/school is a 5 min walk away.

Suburbs are still like that. However each one is different. The block bbq always only happened because someone living there arranged it. Not every suburb had that person and so not every one had a block bbq. Likewise, kids play together when they are of close enough age. My daughter has lots of kids to play with, but my son just a few years older is frustrated because there is nobody to play with - it is completely chance that a bunch of 9-11 year old girls live in my area and few boys.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#329

Post by trgn »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #226
antiframe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. Every time someone visits me in my city home, they comment on how nice it must be able to walk to school, the ice cream shop, the library, the playground full of other kids who walked or biked there, or just see other people out and about. But, they say, they could never live in the city. It's too dangerous. Cars are dangerous. No sidewalks on 50mph roads are dangerous. Loneliness is dangerous. And yes, th…

> But life is full of safety vs. living tradeoffs. That's not even the issue. Suppose that more people wanted to live in a city than currently do. The market implies that -- the price per square foot is higher in cities. And that's the problem, when the city isn't allowed to grow. The existing city already has tall buildings, so if there is more demand than supply, to create more of it you need to add more somewhere…

i live in the midwest and the core of the city is dirt cheap. people don't want to live here because of the crime and vagrancy. it's a foul atmosphere.

i do live here with my children, and it's just because we grew up in similar environment, and works well for other logistical arrangements, etc. i love it for many reasons, but outsiders do see the issues that i have become blind to.

the problem really is all of the above. it is the fast, heavy cars with texting drivers, it is the schizo's yelling at people as they shuffle around, it is the long distances between anything to do, it is the lack sidewalks, it is the gerrymandered school districts, it is the - if not criminal - at least trashy neighbors playing loud music, ...

it's a wonder if it comes together at all, and when it does, it is very expensive. and it isn't even necessarily the "city". it's usually the nice suburb, with the community pool, and your neighbors are doctors, and it's in a "good" school district,... it is such a narrow target.

i want the city to rebound, be a welcoming place for families, but it will take addressing all of the above.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#330

Post by y11t0 »

As a 16-year-old, I want to say this: My friends and I do go out, but that sense of spontaneity we used to have is gone.Everything's pre-arranged in group chats now, those spontaneous get-togethers always excited me more, but they’re very rare now. And I think this is now universal in most places
Post reply on HN