What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by bluGill » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

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…

In the US the city is not a safe place for kids. Great for the 21-30 year old crowd (and older folks that didn't "grow up") since there are many great bars and parties, but there are no kid friendly places. I know several people out here in the suburbs who loved city living until they had kids. One kid under 5 isn't too bad, but as soon as the kid is school age you look at how bad the schools are and you get out thus ensuring nobody will try to fix the problem.

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

#302

Post by gosub100 » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

dyauspitr wrote: post #154

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in walking distance of all these things, and the farthest I’ve gotten my kid to do things alone is to walk to and from school (a whole 8 minutes). But even in my dense neighborhood, it’s not dense enough, kids are hardly at the playground unless it’s nice out, the ice cream shop is a bit too expensive for kids on their own, the 7-11 is probably the sketchiest place they could go to. I’m not really sure what we…

Even in the early 2000s people were forced to be outside because the inside was boring. This was supercharged in the 70s. That’s no longer the case. People have endless, on demand entertainment inside now.

Me and my friend in the 90s dug a fucking HOLE in the back yard because we were so bored. We got it down to about 5 feet, probably just enough to be dangerous.

This was still in the era of SNES and Sega, but even those got boring after a while.

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

#303

Post by deltarholamda » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

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…

I'm old enough to remember Atari when it was new. Playing a video game at home was quite something, no quarters required! But it also had somewhat limited replayability. Doesn't matter how good you are, eventually Defender is going to beat you.

The NES was a radical departure in how games were played and how good they were. You'd never spend all day in front of the Atari, but you could with the NES.

Add to that the steady increase in the availability and affordability of cable tv, then VCRs and video rentals, and now the TV is even more central to the ordinary person's life. Then came computers, the Internet, etc.

I think there is definitely something to kids just not being as interested in going outside. Why would they be? All their friends are in the magic box in their pocket. Outside is where you get sunburn and ticks that make you allergic to meat.

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

#304

Post by jghn » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

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…

I agree that people don't give this explanation enough credit.

I was online in that age group by the late 80s. Just as in your story, that started me down a path of not going outside as much, even though the other kids would be outside doing outside things. Why would I go out and play basketball or something else I didn't like when I could instead be online talking to people with shared interests?

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

#305

Post by bluGill » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:06 PM UTC

Andrex wrote: post #288

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…

In the extremes I fear this would lead to Dredd-like Mega Cities just taking over the entire continent. At some point, a lot of people want a multi-generational space to stick around in for a long time (where the sun isn't blotted by tall buildings). Tearing up suburbs for skyscrapers every generation can't possibly be "the answer..."

That cannot happen. Cities need a lot of "empty" space around them for farms. Well I suppose everyone could move to Spain (picking a random country) and leave the rest of the world to robotic farms. However we can't expand to cover even all of Spain unless everyone is living in a mega suburb with everyone having their own single story mansion.

(others have already pointed out that populations are on track to fall shortly and there is no reason to think that trend will reverse though nobody knows)

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

#306

Post by jazz9k » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:07 PM UTC

"A 2008 study found that media exposure explains why Americans, in particular, often see the rest of the world as dangerous Other research shows a link between the amount of crime reported on the news and the degree of fear people have over crime."

So we should go back to the 'good old days' and not report the crime? I guess ignorance is bliss. If there is more crime being reported in an area, that's a signal that it's more dangerous, and you should take precautions.

"Stranger abductions, the thing every parent imagines when they hesitate to let a 10-year-old walk to a friend’s house, were rare in 1985 and are rarer today."

It's the same with plane crashes. The problem is that it only has to happen one time for total devastation.

There are now grooming gangs in countries like the UK to worry about (which wasn't the case in the 80s and 90s). The Internet has made it much easier for predators to organize, share information, and get to your kids.

When I was 11, I was around people doing drugs, smoking, drinking, and lighting illegal fireworks off (nearly blew my fingers off a few times), all without my parents knowing.

The dangers were always there. Society just chose to ignore them in the those days.

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

#307

Post by jghn » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #301

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…

In the US the city is not a safe place for kids. Great for the 21-30 year old crowd (and older folks that didn't "grow up") since there are many great bars and parties, but there are no kid friendly places. I know several people out here in the suburbs who loved city living until they had kids. One kid under 5 isn't too bad, but as soon as the kid is school age you look at how bad the schools are and you get out thus…

A large problem in discourse like this is relative terms. Specifically what people consider to be "city" or "urban" vs "suburban" vs "rural".

I live in an area of the US that the vast majority of US citizens would describe as "city" yet it doesn't conform to your description. The kids here get along just fine. But it's an important distinction because it would have been described as more of a suburb 100 years ago in that we are a few miles away from the heart of downtown.

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

#308

Post by bluGill » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #264

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…

Historically, probably more people had to work in cities and many of those people had a preference for not having a long commute. Those dynamics have doubtless changed to some degree. But, if I had to commute daily to the nearest large city, I'd seriously consider living there. But I don't have to so I live rurally/exurban or whatever you want to call it.

Historically people had to work on a farm! The vast majority of the historical population lived close enough to their fields to walk to it every day. Sure Rome had a million people 2000 years ago, but that was only possible because many many millions of people (often slaves and thus not seen much in history) who didn't live in Rome and produced a surplus of food.

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

#309

Post by ghaff » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC

throw0101c wrote: post #299

ghaff wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, probably more people had to work in cities and many of those people had a preference for not having a long commute. Those dynamics have doubtless changed to some degree. But, if I had to commute daily to the nearest large city, I'd seriously consider living there. But I don't have to so I live rurally/exurban or whatever you want to call it.

> Historically, probably more people had to work in cities and many of those people had a preference for not having a long commute. Commute time has been 30 minutes for a large portion of human history: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti%27s_constant It's just as technology has developed different means of transportation (from walking to rail, automobiles) the distances involved have gotten greater because spe…

I don't really disagree. One hour each way starts to seem like a lot. 30 minutes isn't walking next door or downstairs but seems pretty doable in general. Even within a large city with decent public transit, it's not hard to get up to close to a half-hour commute to get into an office. Most people who don't work from home don't live a 5 minute walk from their workplace.

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

#310

Post by api » Tue, May 26, 2026, 1:10 PM UTC

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 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 an unreserved advocate for urbanism. The dark side of urbanism is that nobody but the property owners can accumulate wealth.

Tangent but: I also see a hidden legacy of racism here that probably still impacts black net worth in the USA. Early suburbs, before the civil rights act (which the right still hates) and similar laws, were often red-lined. This probably did a double whammy. On one hand, blacks were prohibited from participating in the automobile-driven escape to affordable home ownership, and the exodus from the cities probably tanked that home equity some of them might have had there.

I'm not at all the first person to point this out, but it's something people forget about.

Of course now the suburbs are getting unaffordable, so now everyone's on the Titanic arguing about deck chairs. In the long term the automobile can't keep driving sprawl forever. The law of rent catches up.