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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

#561

Post by HDThoreaun »

oersted wrote: post #552
HDThoreaun wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 getti…

Ive lived in Chicago my whole life. Anti social behavior is not common, but it's definitely not rare. On public transit it is pretty standard. I think the lack of enforcement is what really rubs people the wrong way though. Not like someone being loud in public or whatever is that big of a deal, but it can create a mentality that quickly turns into a low trust society. When people dont respect your wishes why should you respect theirs kind of thinking. Most of chicago is absolutely a low trust society. Everyone acknowledges that rules arent enforced and are therefore optional. Low trust society + optional rules is an environment that many do not enjoy. The exclusionary zoning is just a reaction to that. When these people think of streets that are "alive" they remember that time they almost stepped in human shit in the park and they feel helpless. That feeling of helplessness easily overwhelms all the great times they had. Maybe theyre wrong to feel that way, maybe not.

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

#562

Post by amanaplanacanal »

throw0101c wrote: post #549
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I think the idea is that it locks them out of owning real estate. How does urbanism lock people out of owning real estate?

It doesn't have to, but at least where I live, urban means apartments, and the great majority of apartments are rentals, not for sale.

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

#563

Post by GeekyBear »

bombcar wrote: post #518
GeekyBear wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 The norm in the 70's was for younger kids to have multiple groups of friends, at least until they were old enough to ride their bike across town. When you spent time with larger groups of kids, like at school, you could make friends based on shared interests. After school, your fri…

I feel with larger school sizes and online capabilities we've lost the friendship of necessity - where you'd be friends with the kids on the block "because you had to" and there wasn't really any other option. They might not be amazing friends, or life-long ones, but they were friends.

Learning to get along with people you don't completely "vibe with" is an important life skill.

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

#564

Post by krieger_857 »

vjk800 wrote: post #202
graemep wrote: post #192

This bit is not supported by the quoted studies: "We live in a culture of safetyism. And it’s largely an English speaking phenomenon." If you look at page 14 of this: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/default/files/files... its far from clear. I am also very dubious of the findings. The very low level of mobility in Sri Lanka contradicts what I see - especially relative to England. Most families do not have ca…

I was wondering what the hell people here are talking about. Then I saw that my country (Finland) is number one on that list. Indeed, my children (3 and 5 year old) run freely around the half hectare communal yard of my housing company (which includes 12 apartments). Almost all kids here go to school by themselves either by walking or by bike, starting at the age of seven. I also see kids around this age playing with…

I agree, here in Chile, at least where I live, children play outside all the time. Maybe it's an internet thing where people have a massive disconnection from reality (To various degrees of course).

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

#565

Post by buellerbueller »

mothballed wrote: post #525
buildsjets wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you have an accurate and full understanding of the issues plaguing some areas of American city centers. I can't even recall the last time I saw a person who was drunk in public causing a serious issue after leaving a downtown bar. It just doesn't happen. Besides, you don't need to go to the city center to get drunk, we sell full proof booze in the supermarkets here. People go to the city center to buy t…

I've seen hood rats specifically camp out near the bar to find marks to steal from, though. In that sense the bar can congregate crime.

>hood rats

unbiased source data, clearly

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

#566

Post by Amezarak »

embedding-shape wrote: post #544
Amezarak wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I was in a major city with my kids I went to a major, nice park. They had to use the bathroom. There were ample bathrooms but every single one of them was filled with human feces, covering practically every surface, and littered with needles. There is absolutely no reason to tolerate this in a civilized society, and it’s completely unheard of in the region I’m from, a major culture shock - along with th…

> There were ample bathrooms but every single one of them was filled with human feces, covering practically every surface, and littered with needles. What the hell? No offense, but was this in a slum somewhere or something? Not saying it doesn't happen in other places, but I think I've came across that once in my ~35 years, visiting countless of public bathrooms, cities and towns, admittedly mostly around in Europe,…

I’ve definitely heard that other countries don’t tolerate this sort of thing, but the thread is about US cities. Of course YMMV, my understanding is many European cities have very few or only paid public bathrooms.

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

#567

Post by steveklabnik »

macNchz wrote: post #551
steveklabnik wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

> 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.

Yes, I would agree with this as well.

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

#568

Post by goosejuice »

antiframe wrote: post #559
goosejuice wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

Yeah walking to work would be pretty uncommon, though you can commute into the city. My comment was mostly about kids walking to school / into town and low crime. I don't think that's too uncommon for suburbs served by train in the US. College towns are pretty good for this as well. They can be costly for houses though.

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

#569

Post by enaaem »

bluGill wrote: post #308
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 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.

Farms were always placed as close to the city as much as possible, because it is impractical to transport food from a distance. An ox-drawn cart isn't faster than walking speed, so farmers still had to live a walkable distance from the city market.

Historic cities and castles are almost always wrongly depicted in movies. They are always placed in a grace field in the middle of nowhere, but there should be farmland everywhere.

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

#570

Post by brightball »

zabzonk wrote: post #417
brightball wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did that too, but the mall was also a good time. Since we couldn't drive, parents had to drop us off and then eventually come pick us up again.

> the mall was also a good time. Oh well, not for me. I am/was a UK project manager who spent far too much time in the malls around Princeton NJ, where we were working. I had no choice because I don't drive, so I depended on bossing my lead developer about to get me places (sometimes worked) - and god how she could shop. I just prayed that the malls would have a bar - mostly not. But I would still hate malls for thei…

Might be a different experience in a smaller town.
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