261–270 of 388 posts
An odd choice of dates in the charts: 1969, 2009, 2017, 2022. 40 years between the first two and less than ten between the other ones. I would have liked to see more uniform spacing between the first two to understand whether the change across those 40 years was gradual. Our family suffers this insanity, too. This is one of the few things my spouse absolutely refuses to budge on: she won't let our child walk, bicycle…
I looked at the author’s Google map view of the 2 miles they couldn’t walk to school, and the enormous grassed area next to the road would have meant I’d be walking that quite happily in the UK.
Rural property owners in the US are somewhat likely to shoot first and ask questions about trespassers only later. In some parts of the country the Road is the only obviously public land. (Even that can't be taken for granted sometimes, as private streets exist in some areas, too.)
Thinking through where I've lived -- a lot of the original school buildings built in circa 1950 were more in city center. The article touches on the move of schools to the outskirts of town as a cost savings measure but I think the opposite may be true. As population and (perceived) facilities increased, the schools built new buildings in farmland or other wide open areas on the outskirts of town to have more room fo…
The idea of common spaces in American cities largely died during & after Covid. Anything you did in public (gyms, eating out, public transport, apartment common areas) was suddenly prey to whatever idea a politician had that morning. I think we all remember walking into a restaurant with a mask on, to promptly take it off as soon as you sat down. At the same time as these guidelines were being piled on, basically all laws below murder stopped being enforced. So you had to negotiate a bus full of drug addicts shooting up and riding for free, or leave the sidewalk because it had been taken over by a tent city.
Personal transport is required in America, the places with the infrastructure to avoid it dont have the capacity to govern (any big city). The places with the governing capacity (suburban, rural areas) dont have the infrastructure.
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It’s the US. People on here are so sheltered.
The majority of the US is absolutely not like this. You keep accusing other people of living in a bubble, but you're indexing your entire experience on to anecdotes of where you grew up as an individual experience.
What about the people that report parents to the police for endangering their children by allowing them to walk/bike to school?
If the child is not in any actual danger, then people who call emergency services or police need to be cited for wasting resources. Busybodies seem to call because of "what if" things. That child's actual danger is the busybody.
As a mandatory reporter, my instructions are if there is any possibility report and let the experts figure it out. There is no harm to me if I report and nothing is found. However if they discover something and find that I was in contact with the kid in question they will investigate: if there is anything that I should have seen I'll be arrested for not reporting it.
Counter point: I used to walk home from school. Got robbed at gun point several times. Jumped for my skin color numerous times. Had a neighborhood buddy who got stabbed three times on his way home and survived. I can go on and on and on. I had to learn to walk an extra 20-30 minutes to avoid these situations. I will never let my kids walk home in 2025. Edit: no one told these parents to drive up for pick up like a dr…
You are raising your kids in a neighborhood that is prone to this level of violence?
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> The sad part is everyone involved can turn around and claim As a mandatory reporter if I don't report such a thing I can be put in prison. Many activities now make all adults mandatory reporters (only mandatory reporters are allowed to go camping with scouts). I'm specifically told not to think, if there is any possibility I must report it and let the experts figure out if there is a problem or not. This of course…
> As a mandatory reporter if I don't report such a thing I can be put in prison. Many activities now make all adults mandatory reporters (only mandatory reporters are allowed to go camping with scouts). I'm specifically told not to think, if there is any possibility I must report it and let the experts figure out if there is a problem or not. There are some issues here with what you're saying. Mandatory reporter clas…
What is all that based on? Are you a mandatory reporter?
It might be dangerous to give advice. Even if you know your jurisdiction, others will vary.
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We need busses. If it has to be techy-flashy, would it satisfy you if the bus was self-driving?
Busses are slow as snot in many cases, because the routes are insane. We can walk to school and see the bus when we leave the house and easily beat it by many minutes. (Busses being slow and routes taking long is probably a design feature, allowing schools to let out at 3PM but parents to not have to be home until 5PM or later). But the real final solution won't be robocars, it'll be robokids. Then if you lose one yo…
Though you are correct a bus is slow, done right they are faster than walking.
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You cannot legislate positive cultural attributes into being. There's no way to fine people into reading to their kids, picking up trash when they see it, deciding to put the grocery cart back, prioritizing academic achievement, etc.
It takes a lot more than legislation, but Japan's modern culture is in large part the product of its education system. It has a strong focus on teaching exactly that sort of prosocial behaviour.