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

stevemagness.substack.com

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

#531

Post by theultdev »

basilikum wrote: post #470
theultdev wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if any car hits a child it's probably going to kill them. they aren't tall enough to roll over the top, even a smaller sedan. being defensive around stupid people is a lesson, teach the child to always be aware when near a road.

> if any car hits a child it's probably going to kill them. That's not true. Obviously if you hit a child on the highway with 100km/h that child is gonna be dead. But when you're going 30 in a residential area and suddenly there is a child in front of you car, so you hit the break slowing down to 15km/h it makes a huge difference how your car is build. > being defensive around stupid people is a lesson, teach the chi…

You don't know what people use their trucks for.

They have utility and getting rid of trucks in the name of safety is really stupid. How are you going to stock food, how are you going to transport goods?

There's safety, then there's regression. Might as well put everyone in a bubble suit.

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

#532

Post by amanaplanacanal »

macNchz wrote: post #505
oersted wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there could be small shops and restaurants dispersed at walking distances that don’t require parking space. I get that it is low density, but not that low, and there is some money to spend in such areas. They would do good business.

There's definitely plenty of suburban development in the US that could support small neighborhood businesses without parking spaces, but in the overwhelming majority of the country, they're literally not allowed to exist without special permission. In theory this ensures that any one business doesn't put undue strain on the local supply of parking spaces, but in reality I think it creates a sort of feedback loop that…

The whole parking thing is just so weird. Looking around my neighborhood, every house has a two car garage and enough room in the driveway to park either 2 or 4 more cars. But somehow street parking is at a premium.

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

#533

Post by bombcar »

trgn wrote: post #394
buellerbueller wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i, too, live in the midwest. the core of the city is cheaper than the suburbs. i see people who don't want to live there because of their overestimated risk about the crime and vagrancy. it is a foul atmosphere, fomented by a mix of local news hysteria, malicious internet commenters, and statistical ignorance.

i agree it's overestimated, and it's not "as bad" as many believe it to be. but it is worse. i get the lightbulb stolen from my garage light every month. that sort of petty crime is non-existent when you live in a nice suburb. but it's only a lightbulb, not that hard to replace. am i worried me or my family will get shot? no, my neighbors are actually all very nice. but the family pizza place on the commercial strip…

The "yearly pizza shooting" is as absurd to some people as "the town rapist" would be to others.

There doesn't seem to be anything mandatory about cities having proportionally more crime.

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

#534

Post by buellerbueller »

breezybottom wrote: post #507
buellerbueller wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like a sample size/bias problem to me. maybe you're just drawn to slums?

Ah the libertarian solution. "Just stop being poor"

lol, no--you just made an unsubstantiated (and stupid) claim that any apartment that isn't an NYC penthouse is a slum, and i countered that you can't use the limits of your own experience to reliably define what the world contains

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

#535

Post by buellerbueller »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #512
buellerbueller wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, feels and vibes beat rationality and science. Is it any surprise the US is backsliding?

Can't tell if it's backsliding or reverting to the mean :(

probably the same thing, but mine has moral judgment.

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

#536

Post by grvdrm »

dividefuel wrote: post #415
csomar wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more rewarding to walk 2-3km when there is a lot of things to see/do compared to walking 1km just to get to the station in a lonely walk. Just having/seeing people walk along/across you makes a world of difference.

I think walking VS driving is also about convenience. In the example we're replying to, the shared suburban street has a marked median (implying medium traffic), minimal shoulder, and no sidewalk. While the houses and foliage are very nice, it feels a little unsafe to walk on. Presumably the train station has nice parking, so driving is quick and easy to do. Choosing to walk in this case is more for leisure or for ex…

Right.

That train distance is ~20-25 mins walk.

So, I save some time driving - and use that time elsewhere.

Also, putting aside dense cities like Boston, NY, Chicago - I think most folks wouldn't describe many others in the U.S. as walkable.

LA? Atlanta? There are pockets of course.

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

#537

Post by bombcar »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #527
throw0101c wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

I think the idea is that it locks them out of owning real estate. Of course that opens the question: why should real estate be a continually appreciating asset? There are other countries where it isn't.

> Of course that opens the question: why should real estate be a continually appreciating asset? There are other countries where it isn't.

Over time, real estate just is inflation - if it's more than inflation it eventually ends up infinitely expensive and unaffordable, if it's less than inflation it leads to cheap-as-free.

Arguably the second is more desirable from a human standpoint - but the first is where financialization leads us.

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

#538

Post by amanaplanacanal »

grvdrm wrote: post #259
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 da…

How far people are willing to walk depends quite a bit on what they are walking past. Lots of people will walk through an area of shops, cafes, etc, fewer will walk through an area of house after house after house, almost nobody will walk through an area that is one long concrete wall.

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

#539

Post by hansvm »

bluGill wrote: post #485
hansvm wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 10 houses per shop Broadly speaking, that sounds super low, and it also doesn't echo the business density I typically observe. I think even for lifestyle businesses you need hundreds of homes actively using your services, maybe thousands total. Suppose you really could live off just 10 houses; you'd need something like $2400/yr/person in revenue at 100% cash operating margins to turn it into a reasonable income (wh…

You are not running the same numbers I am. If there are 1000 houses I'm claiming there should be about 100 retail shops. That people only get a haircut every few months is why those can't spread out.

That sounds plausible. If you're talking about total shop count of any kind, then as a conversion factor between my numbers and yours we're saying there are 20-100 types of shops people visit with any regularity in a year. That sounds about right.

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

#540

Post by grvdrm »

ghaff wrote: post #429
grvdrm wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I find this whole topic reductive in general. Specifics matter quite a bit. I don't disagree with some of the article but it feels very gloomy compared to suburban life I see around me.

Yeah, it depends on your definitions I guess. I'm certainly not in classic suburbia. I think ESRI says I'm in an exurb. In any case, I'm certainly not walking anyplace except down to the river or to a couple adjacent neighbors or conservation land within a 100+ acres total. Where I grew up was similar. This is considered urban by the US census by the way.

Sounds anything but urban to me!
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