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What adults lost when kids stopped playing in the street
- metadat 2y agohttps://archive.today/7h3zG https://archive.today/7h3zG
- neonate 2y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20240730002237/https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/07/play-streets-children-adults/679258/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240730002237/https://www.theat...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- anotherhue 2y agoCars are man's only predator. They deny us the outside.
- dyauspitr 2y agoSpeak for yourself. My car opens up the world to me. Without it I would be stuck in urban areas all the time.
- parpfish 2y agoUrban areas are not nearly as damaging to kids as SUBurban areas. Urban areas provide the potential for lots of human interaction and culture. Rural areas provide nature and solitude. Suburban areas give you a three mile walk to a convenience store without sidewalks.
- megamike 2y agoUrban areas are not nearly as damaging to kids as SUBurban areas oh ya? Live in one of the top 5 crime cities in USA and also consider air pollution
- Zambyte 2y agoWhat do you think causes most of the pollution...?
- woodruffw 2y agoIf you rank US cities by both violent crime and by hostility to the urban fabric (e.g. development of highways through dense neighborhoods, removal of reliable mass transit), a pattern emerges: the most dangerous cities in the US are also among the most car dependent. Detroit, Memphis, Birmingham, etc. This also closely tracks with residential air quality.
- kazinator 2y ago> provide the potential for lots of human interaction and culture Mainly for those with money.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoIf that were the case, shouldn't we see drastically different outcomes for urban children versus suburban children?
- parpfish 2y agoThere are so many social/economic confounders going into the urban/suburban divide that any study showing one effect would be refuted by another that used different controls and methodology
- bongodongobob 2y agoIn my anecdotal experience, I definitely have. Grew up in a medium sized Midwest town. I don't know anyone who really made it big. Some people moved to bigger cities and whatnot, but I don't know anyone that really moved up the social ladder significantly. On the other side, every C level/director person I've worked with consulting for the bigger companies around here and elsewhere in the US are almost always from a major urban city. I can tell as soon as I meet them. They speak (I don't mean accent) and handle themselves very differently. There's a certain confidence that comes from having broader social experiences and the opportunities and networks that naturally arise from that. Do you know any multihome millionaires from nowheresville Mississippi? How about Chicago, New York, or LA? Again, my 2c, and I almost consider this obvious.
- bedobi 2y agothen move out of the urban area? you get whatever it is that you want, and those of us who actually enjoy urban areas get a safer, cleaner existence
- bossyTeacher 2y agoIt's interesting how you put it that way. Another way of looking at it is that you depend on your car to explore the world. Can you imagine depending on a drug to enjoy the world? That's what dependency is.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoBy your standard, either you're walking, you're riding a bicycle, or you're dependent on something - a car, a bus, or a train. And most of us don't want to be limited to bicycle range.
- rckclmbr 2y agoI don’t think anyone is saying we don’t need cars. They want to decrease dependence on cars. The things that are in bicycle range should be accessible by bicycle. Today, they typically aren’t
- kazinator 2y agoMost transit and car trips are well within "bicycle range". For that matter, bicycle trips too.
- kazinator 2y agoMost transit and car trips are well within "bicycle range". For that matter, bicycle trips too. In a congested urban area, the time range of a bicycle is better than that of an automobile, let alone transit. I.e. the radius where you can be by a certain elapsed time.
- bossyTeacher 2y agoThis is why I find the American way of thinking so interesting. You are equating your body to a piece of metal and rubber. Your car is not your body. It is something external to you. Not only that but is also something that apart from being financially taxing on you, also leads you to destroy the planet and contribute to respiratory issues as well increasing rates of obesity by significantly reducing what's arguably the main source of human physical activity. This reminds me of the tobacco industry trying to defend a dependency on something that is clearly bad for you. And please note that I am talking about private cars here. And note that my response was to your "My car opens the world to me" which is not too different to alcoholics being unable to enjoy the world without unhealthy use of alcohol. It is possible to have a city where amenities are within biking or walking distance. Those cities already exist. But the car first mentality will definitely go down in history as one of the leading factors in the poor health outcomes in the US. People think that fitness implies gym when it doesn't. For most of human history, there were no gyms. People engaged in casual walking
- mitthrowaway2 2y agoIn developed countries like Japan and Switzerland, it's very easy to hop on a train in the city centre and hop off in the countryside for an afternoon hike.
- david-gpu 2y ago> My car opens up the world to me But your car closes the world down to other people, children in particular. We have reached the point where children don't walk or cycle to school because it's dangerous... due to all the parents dropping off their kids rather than walking or cycling with them. A classic tragedy of the commons.
- parpfish 2y agoOne other way that cars are affecting childhood is that car seat requirements keep getting stricter and stricter. It used to be that parents would offer to run carpools to take kids home from activities. Or if you had a sleepover your friends parents would drive you to a movie. But now that it’s not unheard of for kids to use car seats until they start middle school, it basically requires that one of THEIR parents show up for pickup and drop off. This increases the level of necessary parental involvement needed and gets rid of one little way that kids learned to interact with other adults and families.
- cool_dude85 2y agoThe kind of boosters that bigger kids - like, past 1st or 2nd grade - typically use are more or less interchangeable (so you could have an extra booster in the garage for when a kid stays the night, and not worry about fit) and cheap (so, not too bad to pay for the extra booster). They also tend to be pretty quick to put in or take out, unlike car seats for babies. So, it is an additional logistics challenge, but not too bad of one, I'd say.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bcrosby95 2y agoWe have various local "buy nothing" Facebook groups and through those have never had to pay for a booster seat, despite having 7 - enough to fully outfit both of our cars with them.
- parpfish 2y agoCan you actually fit seven in you car (I assume minivan)? Because that’d be great. I remember groups of sevenish kids piling into a car after a soccer game and getting ice cream. I think little things like that do a lot for your sense of autonomy when you can do something in a public place as a kid without a 1:1 ratio of kid:supervisor.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wonderwonder 2y agoI live on a cul-de-sac and its great. Kids can play in the street, no concerns with getting run over. It really does make life easier.
- stephenitis 2y agoI live on a 4 way corner of a small small neighborhood roundabout that teenagers like to speed around. One teen drunkenly crashed into our parked car overnight. Not so safe. :(
- IncreasePosts 2y agoBut a four-way intersection is the exact opposite of a cul-de-sac, even in a small neighborhood. The only people that will ever drive to the end of a cul-de-sac are the owners or visitors of the three or four houses that are at the cul-de-sac.
- hollerith 2y ago>The only people that . . . You underestimate the perverseness of teenagers in loud cars.
- ryandrake 2y agoYea, I almost spit out my beer reading that. We have people who deliberately race down our suburban road to the cul-de-sac, slam on the brakes to make as much noise as they can, do a few burnouts there, and then race back, for no reason other than to be belligerent and antisocial. Not teenagers, either. Grown-ass men do this for the lulz.
- wonderwonder 2y agoI feel like that would end very badly indeed for someone in my neighborhood. Everyone looks out of everyone while minding our business at the same time. Plus we have a huge amount of local cops in the area at all times to the point I have to warn uber drivers that if they speed they are going to get pulled over, guaranteed.
- nightski 2y agoIt's the cars right? Not the speeding driver behind the wheel. Not the person driving home buzzed from the brewery. Or the person on their phone while driving. It's those pesky damn cars. Our culture not only makes too many excuses for reckless drivers, it actively encourages them. That said, our neighborhood has kids playing in the street all the time. But we are fortunate enough to be secluded from the major roads (even though there are plenty of roads).
- plorg 2y agoSure, but the critique of cars in this case is that by making people reliant on cars you encourage all of the above behaviors because people spend more time driving and have fewer transportation options. I don't think you're going to find many, if any, critics of car-centric infrastructure who don't think those things are a problem.
- bigyikes 2y agoI mean… a little bit, yeah. These giant trucks and SUVs really do increase danger, noise, road wear, spot size, etc. Edit: Less than an hour later I got ran out of my lane by a guy in a truck :’) That’s what I get for driving a tiny car, I guess…
- kiba 2y agoEverything becomes easier when you don't require cars to do daily living. Ultimately this is a system level problem that requires multiple solutions and multiple approaches. Ultimately, jailing drunks after the fact is just too late. You need to intervene earlier. After all, there's no drunk to jail if adults never get drunk. Or people just walk home never having to worry about getting hit by a car.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- woodruffw 2y agoIt’s both: reckless driving is induced by car dependence, and car dependence enables reckless drivers to victimize others.
- dang 2y agoAll: HN is for curious conversation. When you're not feeling curious, please don't post. Instead, find something story that you do feel curious about. Comments that boil down to "boo cars" or "yay cars" aren't interesting, and set us up for flamewars that are the opposite of curious conversation, so please don't post like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ars 2y agoIn the suburbs kids never stopped playing in the street. This article is written by someone who lives in a city. "In many ways, a world built for cars has made life so much harder for grown-ups." - but this isn't true in a suburb. I've really started to notice who all the articles complaining about cars are written by people who only know what cities are like. Move to a suburb - it's much nicer, and you'll barely see any cars.
- ravetcofx 2y agoI hated growing up in Canadian suburbs, and in most of North America, they are soulless places where kids and youth have not much to do and are forced to rely on parents for going to see friends, family, sports etc. Sure -- tucked away cul-de-sacs and side streets might allow the neighbour kids to play games here or there, but are not conducive places for communities to truly engage as their macro environment which has been generally destroyed for anyone outside a car. If you're lucky enough to live near shops, their usually pedestrian hostile seas of parking-lot asphalt where people fly through to get a specific task done, rather than just exist around other people. Peoples lives turn into monotony of Work->Walmart->Home->Repeat... It's honestly a really vile environment. I understand the desire for a large separated home with a yard where it's quieter, but for the suburbs to actually be functional, municipalities need to re-legalize front-yard shopfronts and more public spaces like plazas, community gardens, gazebos etc.
- morkalork 2y agoVile? That's a little very over dramatic. What of all the kids growing up in the sticks in Canada? Pour one out for those lost souls, biking down the same gravel road with nothing on it for fun in summer, getting up at 6am to wait for a bus in a shack by the highway. Get over yourself.
- bongodongobob 2y agoSticks and sprawling suburbia are completely different. I lived in the sticks in elementary school, then moved to suburbia. In the sticks, you may have swaths of fields and forests to roam. In suburbia, it can be someone else's fenced in backyards for miles around and you may not be able to get to a park unless you have a car. The freedom of the countryside is nothing like suburbia.
- walkabilitee 2y ago[dead]
- alfor 2y agoThe real problem is screens of all sorts: gaming and cellphones. Most kids have unlimited access to internet so it's video games and porn for boys and social and games for girls. The roads and curbs didn't change here, but the amount of time outside definitely did.
- yieldcrv 2y agosomeone’s never hooked up with Gen Z Many girls are negatively affected by their porn consumption as well and this is a huge blindspot with the default focus on boys
- ravetcofx 2y agoAverage cars got bigger and heavier with a higher line of sight since even the 90s, making them exponentially more dangerous for everyone outside them. Cars are the second leading cause of child mortality in the US
- jonathan_landy 2y agoLink below has some interesting plots. One shows child pedestrian deaths per 100k population going steadily down since 70s. Yet adult pedestrian deaths have recently ticked up. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...
- elzbardico 2y agoAnd very few children die, because generally children are not very likely to die. So, what?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- resoluteteeth 2y agoIt is possible that kids spending more time in front of screens is at least partly an effect of it not being safe for them to go outside on their own, rather than then kids spending time in front of screens simply being the cause of them not playing outside.
- II2II 2y agoI am all for walkable neighbourhoods, places where people feel welcome on the streets. Yet there is also the question of: how do we achieve that goal? As the article mentions, there is more to it than eliminating the car. Social structures must be rebuilt. There need to be places where children can seek safety (a friend's house, a store). Adults need to keep an eye on children, even if they are unfamiliar children, to protect them from harm. It's not just the "stranger danger" category that matters here. Kids can be miscreants too. As much as I agree with people talk about children's lives being too structured, I also fear that too many people take things to the opposite extreme. Structure provides learning opportunities for children. They learn new games. They learn how to interact socially. Sure, that can be done without structure. Sometimes with very undesirable outcomes. Reigning in cars and structure may provide room for social change, but they are not enough on their own. We also need a framework to facilitate that social change, rather than hoping it will magically happen.
- anal_reactor 2y ago> Social structures must be rebuilt Cutting off from everyone around you and living in your own bubble is convenient. I lived in a few places, and in none of them did I have any idea who my neighbors were, simply because living this way was always easier. In order to rebuild social structures you'd need to convince people that hanging out with your neighbors is net positive, not net cost.
- resoluteteeth 2y ago> I am all for walkable neighbourhoods, places where people feel welcome on the streets. Yet there is also the question of: how do we achieve that goal? As the article mentions, there is more to it than eliminating the car. Social structures must be rebuilt. There need to be places where children can seek safety (a friend's house, a store). Adults need to keep an eye on children, even if they are unfamiliar children, to protect them from harm. It's not just the "stranger danger" category that matters here. Kids can be miscreants too. A few decades ago, when it was normal for kids to play in the residential streets where they lived, those streets actually were places that were safe for kids, not just in terms of cars, but in the other ways you are describing, because there were generally enough people outside to keep them safe. Additionally, creating a situation where people's kids are playing with other kids on the same street actually does help create these "social structures". (The kids' parents will typically end up getting to know the other kids' parents in a way that might not happen if the kids are always inside except when they're being driven around in cars.) So I think just trying to do traffic calming on residential streets and make them safe for kids to play would actually help resolve these other problems, and resolving them shouldn't be seen as a precondition for trying to address the car aspect of making streets safe for kids to play in.
- Guthur 2y agoCars are not the problem it's fearful parents. When I grew up there were all cars on the streets, and before cars there were horse and carts which had their own dangers. Over the last 150 years the distance that parents have allowed their children to roam has gradually diminished from many miles to essentially be the other room. I feel this is more a product of our risk obsessed society, everything is about analysing and taking action to reduce risk. You can hear it everywhere, risk reduction, risk based analysis etc. Edit: and in the interest of full disclosure I'm a father of 3 and know exactly how hard this is. I can't imagine me being comfortable with what I got up to as a child and that's the tragedy.
- jedberg 2y agoThe risk is real, but not how you think. The risk of children getting hurt is actually the lowest it's ever been, but risk of legal trouble is the highest it's ever been. We let our children roam and got a visit from the police because of it. Someone reported "unsupervised children". The police came to our door and started questioning us. My wife just kept saying, "did we do anything illegal?" and "were they unsafe?". The police ultimately admitted that they were perfectly safe and we did nothing illegal, but warned us that, "it just looks bad and you should be more careful". We've also been scolded by other parents at the park when we let our kids go to the other side of the park 100 yards away. "How could you let them go so far? What if they get hurt or need you?" It makes us not want to let them roam, just to avoid the hassle.
- jamesmontalvo3 2y agoWhat ages are you talking about? Where I live (in the US) I can’t imagine parents scolding me if I let my kids wander 100 yards from me, unless they were very young.
- jedberg 2y ago6-8 at the time.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
- elzbardico 2y agoA lot of urban problems can be charged 100% on cars, not this one. Cars are nothing new in America, and even on gated communites with traffic patterns not different from what they were 40 years ago, this dynamic has changed a lot. The cult of safety and media induced paranoia and fear probably are far more important to explain this. Blaming cars for that is actually a symptom of the role the media fear mongers played on fucking our lives.
- hnbear 2y agoHaving lived in various different places - dense city, suburban town, more rural town, for us it all came down to the city planning, far more than any other factor. Living in a small but dense NJ town with close town-houses and good sidewalks our kids were free to walk to the neighbors and they knew all the kids on the street. Our neighbours actually positioned kids toys on all the front lawns when selling their house to emphasize the child friendliness of the area. Because the houses were close - feet between them, with many per block, the density meant every block had plenty of kids, and the walks were short enough to let them out. Smaller city streets kept cars slower too. But being a smaller town the only people around were neighbors keeping everyone feeling safe. Cities have a density that stops parents wanting to let their kids out - think midtown Manhattan - just too much going on to let a younger child run free. Conversely, living in more rural CT the house plots are so big it's a schlep to a neighbors, and there are no sidewalks. There are far fewer kids in walking distance because of the plot sizes. Without sidewalks and bigger distances the cars travel far faster too. There's always an F250 traveling 50 in a 25 ready to mow down a whole family without noticing it. Given a little freedom our kids could easily walk to their neighbours, to the local school to play soccer in the school yard, or on the playground, and they'd meet so many more kids, even relatively young. Towns need to be designed to be social - older towns are far better for this, the pre-car ones. Find a smaller town build before 1900 and it'll be great to raise a family in.
- jinushaun 2y agoAt least around here (Seattle area), houses built after 2018 seem to be doing exactly this: sidewalks, trees, densely packed SFH, playgrounds and close to shopping. Unfortunately, most housing stock is from the era of poor walkability (aka, 80s and 90s) In my town, the difference is night and day.
- philips 2y agoAs a person who prefers walking/biking and also a parent the issue for me is all of the American infrastructure is not designed to be comfortable outside of a car. I know the about pedestrian deaths declining, etc. I ride my bike for utility 1,000+ miles a year with both kids. It feels like I am going to war just getting groceries, going to the library or doing school. The statistics may not reflect it but my perception is with huge cars and trends in road designs everything _feels_ unsafe and uncomfortable. Some concrete examples: I regularly encounter drivers rolling through stop signs in F150 trucks not seeing my HUGE cargo bike with a flag and every fluorescent color. I encounter broken crossing buttons at least once a month requiring detours or dangerous crossings. The best routes to not interact with cars are completely barren trails built under electrical transmission infrastructure- in the summer they are brutally hot due to lack of any shade cover. It all just feels bad. To the articles point though I have met some good people and created some excellent experiences by not using a car. And I work hard to design my life around not needing to use a car. But, our defaults really stink and a lot of it comes down to a lack of human design factors. This summarizes my feelings well: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/28/if-we-want-a-shift-to-walking-we-need-to-prioritize-dignity https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/28/if-we-want-a-s...
- bongodongobob 2y ago[flagged]
- sweetdekker 2y ago[flagged]
- bongodongobob 2y agoIt's absolutely not. There's Trump signs everywhere around here and plenty of rednecks rolling coal. It's very real.
- l1tany11 2y agoEvery little part of the infrastructure is dumbly serving the idea that a car briefly going 50mph is a good thing. The crossing buttons you mentioned, are often inaccessible from the bike lane. The bike lane doesn’t have a sensor (and such sensors do exist). You have to somehow go up the curb, push the button, and go back to the street. But what if you are turning left or going straight and there is more than 1 lane? What if there are cars in the way, say turning right? Being predictable is paramount to safety, how predictable is it to be in the right lane, hop up a curb to push a button, to go back across 2 lanes to make a left? One thing I’ve realized is that there is a bias regarding speed. If people drive somewhere and there’s a nice fast road with a lot of traffic, then it’s a quick efficient journey. Regardless of the fact that they hit 4 stop lights and actually averaged less than 20mph. Factor in door to door times, and the numbers get crazy. Look at the behavior of people in parking lots. It’s very common for people to spend more time parking, to avoid spending part of that time walking. So instead of going for the available spaces that are a 5-10 second walk from the “good spot” they battle to park as close to their destination as possible. To avoid walking 5 seconds. And now your average speed is 15mph in the suburbs. It’s great.
- synicalx 2y agoI for one am glad kids don't play in the street any more, I'd hate to have to hear all that noise constantly. Backyards with high fences are much better - they can still play outside if they want to but the noise is far more isolated.
- KUNG2094 2y agoFolks should really stop to watch this great video on School Streets in Paris and how making streets surrounding schools can make for a great, fun, safe environment for kids to thrive. See here on Streetfilms: https://youtu.be/ezPzocuqKPc?si=cb7PGXsS_LDAQb1b https://youtu.be/ezPzocuqKPc?si=cb7PGXsS_LDAQb1b
- ides_dev 2y agoWhen I was young we lived in a cul-de-sac and after schools, and during the school holidays, children were a permanent fixture out in the street, kicking a ball around or riding their bicycles. There were no closures to cars and the drivers and kids were just cautious of each other. Now I’m the parent and we live in a very similar cul-de-sac there are never any children playing outside. I’d be quite happy for my son to play out in the street, but given there’s nobody out there, it’s understandably not very appealing for him. I don’t think the issue (here at least) is the vehicles, I think it’s a combination of the “stranger danger” mentioned in the article making parents afraid of letting their children out unsupervised and that other thing we all struggle with: screens. When I was a child there was far less to keep you entertained indoors. Now, with phones, games consoles and the internet, the options are endless. The lack of children playing outdoors is something my wife and I frequently lament, but I think the screens shoulder more of the blame than the cars.
- kkfx 2y agoWell... I see nearly NO KIDS walking around in dense cities, however I see many kids walking around here, in the Alps, where we all live with cars. So well, no, there is no kids-friendly cities. We are social animals born in nature, cities are as more anti-social as more dense they are, as more alien as more dense they are. It's even worse for teenagers who going around only to consume services in cities because there is essentially nothing else to do. While in nature there are many activities to do without any specific service needs like climbing, riding horses, going out MTB, going sailing/phishing/rafting, skiing and so on. In dense cities there are too many social issues to have kids playing around, in low density areas there are countless less. So no, as a European having lived most of the life in dense area, not designed for cars, we lost NATURE there, not because of cars but because of density. The social city WAS the old small village few km long/large with nature around. There is no possible modern social city.
- rickydroll 2y agoI grew up 2 miles and +300 ft outside of a small city in the 1960s. My near family has 6 acres. There was hundreds of undeveloped land that ended in a state park on one side and a New England dairy farm on the other. My parents rarely drove us around; it was bike or walk. I wonder what we lost when children stopped hanging out on dairy farms, hiking to an abandoned quarry, hill-topping, sitting in a tree house 30 feet up in a big old pine, discovering edible fruit in abandoned orchards, skinny dipping in a local reservoir, blueberry picking, and sneaking smokes under the powerlines. There were many things that were not good about growing up at the time, biases, and actions that I grew out of, even if my peers did not, but I do miss the woods.
- KUNG2094 2y ago[flagged]