It's odd, as I see it where I live, but not my hometown. The funny thing is, I live in a bigger town (~70,000) than my hometown (~3,000) is. The children of our

It's odd, as I see it where I live, but not my hometown. The funny thing is, I live in a bigger town (~70,000) than my hometown (~3,000) is. The children of our neighborhood there (a set of four streets) all are out all the time during the summer, often unsupervised and with younger siblings. They'll play up and down the streets, and talk to anyone they see walking and wave and such. They're very street aware too. It's actually nice to see, as my hometown is not like that at all. Parents often won't even let their kids go to the park playground while watching an older (and sometimes younger!) sibling play ball. That's despite the fact there's other parents over there, and it's fairly small so everyone really does seem to know everyone. A family friend has gotten criticized for letting their kids walk from their house to their grandparents, which wasn't even a mile on back roads. They also let their son ride his bike to the park often (2 miles, perhaps), and got criticized for that. It's really weird to see the contrast in the two places.