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Are you attempting to imply that cities did not exist 50 years ago? I'll think you'll find that not only did they exist children were far more autonomous in the

• Jtsummers 10y ago
  The explosion in suburban-style living happened (in the US) largely post-WWII, [EDIT: starting] in or around the 1950s. That's the shift I'm referring to. Living in suburbs makes it easy for kids to wander the streets (parents feel it's safe), but the design (or lack thereof) of many of them make it difficult for kids to be "independent". It's hard to be a 12-year old who wanders to the local candy store to spend your allowance when the nearest shop like that is 10 miles away because of suburban sprawl. Some areas did a better job than others of trying to make their suburbs more like towns with local shops, theaters, and such. But many did not. Cities certainly have existed for ages, and they did allow for children to be quite autonomous. It's the post city move to the suburbs (setting aside the helicopter parent cultural shift we've had) that created a large impact on the availability of options for kids to act as independent people. Additionally, for teens, suburbs make having their own jobs very challenging (though it can reward the entrepreneurial few who start their own service businesses like lawn mowing or raking). Again, short a car, suburbs make life difficult for them, they require the assistance of their parents or others to transport them around, which reduces their autonomy.