3 ms·

I'd add the disaster that happened to most US cities in the last 30 or so years to the list of reasons: urban sprawl and the factual abandonment of public trans

I'd add the disaster that happened to most US cities in the last 30 or so years to the list of reasons: urban sprawl and the factual abandonment of public transport. In large swaths of suburbia, people almost never walk anywhere. When they want to "go outside" they take a car to the park. The result is that the concept of "waiting on a sidewalk for the bus" is so foreign they don't even consider it an option. Let alone "walking to the bus stop". There are a few places where street life still exists – mostly really large cities and really small & old ones. It's a tragedy how the convenience of taking a car right to the front door of some megastore has gutted city life. Shopping used to mean a walk down Main St. with more, smaller owner-operated stores and a high probability of meeting someone and stopping for some coffee. But that took longer, and you needed to live close by (=smaller houses/properties). And sometimes it rained, and those shop were more expensive, and we decided a worthy human being is in the office 46h/week. (not that those aren't legitimate reasons. It's more a matter of taste, and most people apparently don't share mine).

jerf 10y ago
I live in a suburb and I have kids. It isn't what you say it is. It is fear about children being unsafe and metafear that if you aren't seen as watching your children someone will call the cops. We all think this is stupid, except for the one or two busybodies who call the cops. It isn't something stupid about how inconceivable walking is or how foreign the idea of "standing outside" is. That's just you insulting a group of people that I presume you don't like. I think if we're going to see this end, we need institutional change; we need the police to be able to see a situation and tell off the person calling them for being stupid. As long as there's an extremely good chance CPS will take your kid away because some asshat called the cops for something stupid, we parents can not afford to act otherwise.
- heymijo 10y ago
  "We all think this is stupid, except for the one or two busybodies who call the cops." Your comment reminded me of Taleb's "The Most Intolerant Wins." https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15#.z32ueeqto https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dic... Re-reading the article his idea of 're-normalizing' explains what is happening here with our society's view towards unattended children. It's different than the explanation from the parent study, but seems complementary not contradictory.

jerf 10y ago

I live in a suburb and I have kids. It isn't what you say it is. It is fear about children being unsafe and metafear that if you aren't seen as watching your children someone will call the cops. We all think this is stupid, except for the one or two busybodies who call the cops. It isn't something stupid about how inconceivable walking is or how foreign the idea of "standing outside" is. That's just you insulting a group of people that I presume you don't like. I think if we're going to see this end, we need institutional change; we need the police to be able to see a situation and tell off the person calling them for being stupid. As long as there's an extremely good chance CPS will take your kid away because some asshat called the cops for something stupid, we parents can not afford to act otherwise.

heymijo 10y ago
"We all think this is stupid, except for the one or two busybodies who call the cops." Your comment reminded me of Taleb's "The Most Intolerant Wins." https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15#.z32ueeqto https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dic... Re-reading the article his idea of 're-normalizing' explains what is happening here with our society's view towards unattended children. It's different than the explanation from the parent study, but seems complementary not contradictory.