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

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

#251

Post by jhide »

streb-lo wrote: post #137
human305893 wrote: post #62

I can think of so many reasons but the biggest I think is the reduction of community. - When I was a kid mums worked part time or not at all. We had school fates and lots more community gatherings. - Dads didn't work as hard. Half of them would be at your soccer practice at 6pm to hang out - Parents were on local sports teams together or other social groups as well - You did most of your shopping at the local shops,…

I grew up in a suburb like yours. I'm raising my kids in a suburb that's by and large the same. The biggest difference, imo, is the number of families. I lived on a small street with a cul-de-sac. Maybe 35 houses or so. At least half had kids aged 0-15. I now live on a street about the same size with my kids. There is one house with ~7-10 year olds, two houses with 3-5, one house with a couple of teens, one house wit…

How old were the homes when you were a kid?

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

#252

Post by macNchz »

oersted wrote: post #225
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's amazing how much modern-ish suburbia just has no place for you to even exist without a car. It's trendy to blame cars for this but the problem is fundamentally zoning. It's not that there is nowhere for you to exist without a car, it's that there is nowhere for you to exist there at all , and you thereby need a car to leave the vicinity in order to get anywhere you can. If you want to build a cafe or an ar…

As a European, I don’t understand why there’s such resistance to this. I get it NIMBY, but why? Surely good amenities would improve property values and life quality. If it’s right next to your home all the better. Peaceful quietness is so overrated by US and northern Europe. It feels creepy and dead to me, a liminal space. Besides, modern insulation does wonders for blocking noise if that bothers you, not to mention…

In most of the US, only single family detached houses are built (by law), which makes things spread out enough that people will want to drive. To address that, businesses are required to have a bunch of parking space. The end result of that is that, outside of a few places built before these rules took hold, living near amenities means living by parking lots and car traffic. The kind of street that "feels alive" is basically just precluded by rules that facilitate a car-first way of getting around.

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

#253

Post by dncornholio »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #185
dncornholio wrote: post #180

This is a product of making everyone and everything reliant on cars. Social control is out of the window if nobody wanders the streets. Not leaving the front yard is unthinkable in many countries outside the US.

> This is a product of making everyone and everything reliant on cars. That's not necessarily the whole story. While walkable villages and cities would be a huge improvement in many areas of society and community resilience, however kids in un-walkable US suburbia and urban sprawl have had bicycles, skateboards, skates, or some form of mobility device since at least the 1950's. There have been dedicated bike lanes in…

You're looking at it too shallow. Kids don't bike because everything is too far away, because they expect you to drive out of the suburbs. The roads feel less safe, because everyone is in a car. Everyone in cars are unanimous, no social control.

When you have infrastructure that doesn't rely on cars, you will have schools and stores and communities right in your "suburb".

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

#254

Post by paulryanrogers »

jolmg wrote: post #87
paulryanrogers wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would tell Billy's dad, who would make sure he didn't ever do _that_ again, and that would be the end of it. By beating the child?

It's not necessary, but it might be necessary for the child to believe that's a possibility. It's like armies. The presence and the possibility do most of the work. My grandfather didn't beat his children, but e.g. spanks and being hit on the butt by a belt were permissible by society. He didn't do that AFAIK, but the children knew it was possible, and a single look from him sufficed to get them to stop misbehaving.…

I was hit with a belt as a child. The possibility nor the reality helped make me a better person. It actually has a negative effect on mental health

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

#255

Post by epolanski »

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…

My family grew up in communist Poland. In the kind of neighborhood with those ugly grey buildings.

Well, say what you want, but the communists knew how to build neighborhoods.

Between all buildings there was always a 30-50+ meters green space with benches, places for kids to play, walkways, etc.

I remember in the early 90s how lively and safe it was. People spent a lot of time of the day outside. Grandmas had their benches, looked the kids, play, adults would gather and have a drink, etc.

Today? It has all been swallowed by cars. As progress and money came the entire neighborhood has been swallowed by cars. Kids are confined in a single area. You rarely see people outside. People sit at home.

For reference, this is my old neighborhood, albeit the street view is a decade+ old (half the areas are from 2013 because since then entrances to cars have been gated and are only for private cars), but if you stretch the imagination and try to put people around and benches and kids playing areas you can get the sense:

https://www.google.it/maps/place/Osiedle+Kopernika/@49.81596...

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

#256

Post by [deleted] »

tshaddox wrote: post #159
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…

While Spain does sound lovely, I don’t think “having anything to do” was really in my generation/demographic’s mindset while we roamed around the neighborhood. This was small town Midwest in the 90s. We just roamed around doing nothing.

[deleted]

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

#257

Post by oersted »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #233
oersted wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, I don’t understand why there’s such resistance to this. I get it NIMBY, but why? Surely good amenities would improve property values and life quality. If it’s right next to your home all the better. Peaceful quietness is so overrated by US and northern Europe. It feels creepy and dead to me, a liminal space. Besides, modern insulation does wonders for blocking noise if that bothers you, not to mention…

It's some kind of perverse regulatory capture by landlords with the self-destructive assistance of homeowners. Actual urban real estate is preposterously expensive, but the only reason it stays that way is that you can't create more of it, i.e. put urban developments in high demand areas that are currently suburbs. The landlords who own the urban real estate correctly deduce that allowing more to be built would lower…

I do understand why it is kept as low-density, that makes sense. But why not allow intermingled small shops, family-friendly restaurant/bars, schools, sport facilities… Surely they would make the area more desirable?

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

#258

Post by soco »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #170
human305893 wrote: post #62

I can think of so many reasons but the biggest I think is the reduction of community. - When I was a kid mums worked part time or not at all. We had school fates and lots more community gatherings. - Dads didn't work as hard. Half of them would be at your soccer practice at 6pm to hang out - Parents were on local sports teams together or other social groups as well - You did most of your shopping at the local shops,…

- When I was a kid mums worked part time or not at all. This is a big factor. Although the gender side of things is kind of loaded, it used to be broadly the case that a two-parent household would often have one primary breadwinner and one home-maker. Nowadays, both parents need to make money which means that the 'home-making' needs to be done after both parents have finished work. So at 6pm, you're cooking, not hang…

So, going even deeper, maybe there's need for two incomes nowadays to be able to keep up with the lifestyle of a house in the suburbs?

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

#259

Post by grvdrm »

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…

Something I don't see mentioned often in this discussion: what's a "long distance"

Is there a formal measure or comprehensive view on that question?

I lived in Manhattan (NYC). Walked a mile at a time (or more) without thinking about it. To/from work, in cold, in rain, etc.

Now I'm in NYC 'burbs. The train is 1.1 miles from my house. I walk that distance on occasion but not often. My wife drives to/from train most days.

Town is also 1.1 miles from my house, near the train. My daughter is about to be 8. I'm not far off from letting her wander into town on her bike (or on foot), but it's anywhere from a 10/15-25 minute journey depending on how fast you walk/bike and how often you stop.

I also live in what feels like a dense suburb. Many houses close to each other. Example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/KBcvG5vnnh48hGwY8

So, I think there's a difference between nothing to do and it's "close" - whatever that means to you, and there's nothing to do and it requires a 30 min car ride.

Those latter suburbs aren't far from me, and I grew up next to one good example of a suburb w/large houses and nothing much else (Dover, Massachusetts)

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

#260

Post by hk1337 »

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…

We didn’t need things to do back then. We would usually find something like playing wall ball against someone’s house. What we need is kids who respect other people’s things, neighbors to not be crotchety, wide open spaces and trails would be nice.
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