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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

#551

Post by macNchz »

steveklabnik wrote: post #530
oersted wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I understand that it is a regulatory constraint. What I don’t understand is why the regulations aren’t changed. Who is benefiting? I don’t see why it wouldn’t be better for everyone, both in terms of business and living standards.

People who primarily drive don't think through the second order implications. I have been in the car with someone more than once, looking for parking, where they re-invent the idea from first principles. "Ugh, we can't find a spot, why don't they require this place to provide enough parking?" It was a tremendous political fight to get these sorts of reforms through. People get really upset when they perceive you as t…

My charitable interpretation, having talked to a lot of people about this stuff (and having lived in the rural US, NYC, and European cities), is that much of the US has been so car dependent for so long now that many people just lack a basic frame of reference for what daily life can look like without driving alone in a car to do everything outside the house.

Through the lens of a car being the only way that anyone you know has ever gotten around, parking is sort of a strict necessity. "How can you go anywhere if there's nowhere to park when you get there!?"

Meanwhile in the time since these laws came to be, we've roughly tripled the number of miles Americans are driving while the population has grown ~60-something percent, so there's more competition for street space than ever, people are spending tons of time in traffic/looking for parking, which creates a scarcity dynamic that freaks people out about any proposed changes.

The idea that getting some people to use other transportation modes could improve the daily experience for people who genuinely prefer to drive doesn't really click, either, because there's no frame of reference for getting around outside of a car, it's an abstract concept that people would actually do it. Even for people who've visited transit-rich/walkable places but never lived in one, there are often conceptual gaps—like the cadence of getting/carrying groceries, or the idea that bus/subway trips replace car trips 1:1, rather than the bus being a link between walkable areas.

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

#552

Post by oersted »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #517
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…

> I want my streets to feel alive! Most american suburbanites completely disagree with this take. They want their street to be quite and devoid of people. I think this is largely because there is no recourse for anti social activity in the US. People who have spent a lot of time in cities start to notice that anti social activity doesnt really get stopped and many decide it would be better to just not be around outsi…

I can see that. But this really sounds like an imagined picture of someone that has lived in suburbia their entire lives.

Even in low income areas, seeing actual antisocial behavior is very rare. People simply have better things to do than to be problematic, especially those struggling to make ends meet. And they are smart enough not to shit where they eat, and generally band together to prevent bad apples from getting out of hand. They have families too.

Fine yes there are areas actually infested with gangs, addicts and the homeless, who do not have better things to do and are anti-social. But those are rare in the grand scheme.

I have been in most of the so-called dodgy areas in the Bay Area and SF. I was quite confused, it was rather nice! Just lower-middle class.

A lot of it is built up in people’s heads, and reinforced by media.

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

#553

Post by dTal »

slfnflctd wrote: post #379
mothballed wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started trying doing for my kids what was done to me and quickly ran into a brick wall. Had school refuse to release child when I wasn't physically present at bus stop, had cops called at the park, and have had Karens roll up and interrogate my kid for walking "alone" on our property. Only solution I found was to move in the middle of nowhere and buy acreage. No other kids but at least the Karens can be trespassed…

Poor people often get a pass for various reasons. Many/most of those reasons may be bad or stupid ones, but I see it as a silver lining. There is often much more of a sense of community than in other places as well. Giving kids access to a bunch of rural land to explore is a great middle ground for those who can do it.

>If there was hope, it must lie in the proles

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

#554

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Markoff wrote: post #313
flakeoil wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is go shopping in malls what kids should do?

there is hardly anything kids can do in China, one of the main reasons why I moved away after my kid was born (besides dangerous toxic food and air) while here in Europe I have within 10 minutes walk like 3-5 playgrounds for kids to play, in China I would have 0 even if we walked for half an hour, there are literally no playgrounds for kids at all, you will find exercise equipment for adults/old people in parks, but…

Same, although we left before our kid was born due to Beijing's pollution level at the time (it is better now, but still bad).

We found stuff to do last year when we visited Beijing, but we were closer to center city and ya, no playgrounds outside of a few higher end apartment communities. We have a trip planned this summer but the kid is spending 2 weeks in a Chengdu summer camp that is pretty activity loaded.

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

#555

Post by dpkirchner »

quacked wrote: post #277
obscurette wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that at least partly it's the consequence of the very same safetyism. If I look at my generation (in my sixties), we still start conversations with strangers, especially if they are our neighbours and things happen between us. But it doesn happen't between people in their thirties any more. And if I look at my students (highschool and college level), then for them it's very alien and even afraid of situation…

> Why? In addition to not having practice as you said, my thoughts: 1. Camera phones and social media have trained all young people to be aware that anything they say or do could be reported on 2. A lot more overt moralizing about power, gender, and race dynamics by young people makes people hesitant to interact outside of their group 3. Racial and cultural diversity have increased, and people don't reach out across…

Speaking for myself there is one other factor that plays a huge part:

4: Nearly every time a stranger tries to talk to me it is to beg for money or sell me something (which is also begging)

In fact I'd say this is by far the prime reason I don't interact with people I don't know. I'm not a kid, however.

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

#556

Post by californical »

theultdev wrote: post #531
basilikum wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They’re talking about pickup trucks, not delivery semis.

And if you look at pickup trucks, they’ve gotten way taller since the 00’s, for no reason except style.

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

#557

Post by antiframe »

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…

A 30 minute commute by foot, where one passes interesting architecture, parks, is under the shade of trees, can pop into the corner store to get extra milk on the way home (2 minute detour), etc is far more pleasant than a 30 minute commute by car, surrounded by other cars on a seven lane highway with billboards.

Quality matters just as much as quantity, and often more when they're close together. (I would of course prefer a 10 minute drive to a 90 minute walk, for example).

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

#558

Post by dTal »

throw0101c wrote: post #326
api wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

My reading is that in the suburbs you typically buy, while in urban environments you typically rent because all the land is already owned by someone who is making a killing off it; they aren't going to sell because that would be slaughtering the golden goose. And that prevents almost everyone who isn't a landowner from getting ahead, because as soon as you figure out a way to make a surplus, poof the rents go up and absorb it. Oh sure, individuals who perform better than average might be able to press their advantage; but class movement is impossible because it is always "priced in".

I am not sure that this phenomenon is unique to cities, in fact, but rather an inevitable endgame to the idea of owning land in perpetuity. It creates a permanent class divide.

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

#559

Post by antiframe »

goosejuice wrote: post #477
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…

> 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. A lot of small towns, even in the US, offer such things. Towns far from being a city. It should be more common though.

Yes, and by "city" I mean a walk able streetcar neighborhood. The parents can commute by foot/bike/bus, the kids can get around by foot/bike/bus. Lots of town are also structured like that, but they're not close enough for enough employment for the parents. You can have both: a small neighborhood feel with enough density for a quality car-free living and access to many employers in "cities".

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

#560

Post by bsjaux628 »

bombcar wrote: post #528
hsiudh wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been to any place other than the US? The size of a single detached home, including backyard, front lawn and sides can perfectly fit an entire 5-8 story building of two 80m2 apartment per floor, if not more. If you live in a well designed city with public transport, you don't need to waste surface area on a parking garage.

The key is always setbacks - if you have to have ten feet on each side of every building, you can only get "so dense" without going for apartments that consume an entire block. The problem is introducing the zero-setback designs organically - as the people there likely receive little to no benefit, and the people who do receive the benefit aren't there now. E.g., a house could easily be fit between mine and the neigh…

It needs to start somewhere though. Obviously you can't just drop a single building in the suburbs and call it a day, it should be many, with plans for public transport, axing the zoning code to allow for the ground floor of the building to be used for comercial purposes.
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