4 ms·

I live in fairly typical wealthy US suburb, my kid is 7 (1st grade) and goes to school on her own - school is around 0.5 miles away. I have to pick her up from

I live in fairly typical wealthy US suburb, my kid is 7 (1st grade) and goes to school on her own - school is around 0.5 miles away. I have to pick her up from school (parents are required until 3rd grade to check out kid) but often just leave her on playground to play with other kids (unless she has activities that day - which frankly she has more and more of - chess, math, soccer, gymnastics and ballet right now). She walks back home whenever she is done playing. I see kids 10-12 years old biking everywhere and hanging out in Starbucks/restaurants on their own. There are busy roads but you can go around them on secondary roads with low/non existent traffic. While not majority, there are quite a few people who give the same freedom to kids as us. So far we had zero problems but i am thinking about getting smart watch with GPS for piece of mind.

CalRobert 5y ago
Might I ask roughly what region this is, or when it was developed? This sounds kind of like old-style suburbs, which were indeed quite nice. In most of California you can't buy a quart of milk without going over half a mile.
- dfadsadsf 5y ago
  It’s in Westchester, NY - built mostly around 1920-1940 or about that time as train commuter suburb. I think it not unique - Palo Alto and Menlo Park in Bay Area are very comparable and very walkable/bikeable too. For us closest grocery is 0.8 mile away which is borderline walkable but we bike quite a bit (highly recommend Radwagon - great for shuttling 2 kids around and light groceries). Town is still car centric so still lots of driving but we carve out enough for us by biking/walking to not need car every day.
  - CalRobert 5y ago
    Sounds lovely. My favourite suburbs are streetcar suburbs - South Park in San Diego for instance. Narrow streets, shorter setbacks, rowhouses, and just nicer places to exist.
laurent92 5y ago
Depending on your need, I think the Airtag is a good usecase for this, since it doesn’t require a monthly subscription. I had the same question with my dog ;)

CalRobert 5y ago

Might I ask roughly what region this is, or when it was developed? This sounds kind of like old-style suburbs, which were indeed quite nice. In most of California you can't buy a quart of milk without going over half a mile.

dfadsadsf 5y ago
It’s in Westchester, NY - built mostly around 1920-1940 or about that time as train commuter suburb. I think it not unique - Palo Alto and Menlo Park in Bay Area are very comparable and very walkable/bikeable too. For us closest grocery is 0.8 mile away which is borderline walkable but we bike quite a bit (highly recommend Radwagon - great for shuttling 2 kids around and light groceries). Town is still car centric so still lots of driving but we carve out enough for us by biking/walking to not need car every day.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Sounds lovely. My favourite suburbs are streetcar suburbs - South Park in San Diego for instance. Narrow streets, shorter setbacks, rowhouses, and just nicer places to exist.

laurent92 5y ago

Depending on your need, I think the Airtag is a good usecase for this, since it doesn’t require a monthly subscription. I had the same question with my dog ;)