> 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

> 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.