My daughter is five and walks a block to her grandparent's house regularly (by herself, yes I know). In a few years, she will be walking to the corner store for basics or ice cream, or whatever. As for friend's parents, we live in a walkable urban neighborhood (we chose this), and yes, kids do this all the time.
> My guess is probably not. And that’s not the kids’ doing— that’s OUR doing.
It's parent's doing both because of their regulations. It's also parent's doing because parents choose to live in suburbia / pay a premium to do so. If parents paid premiums to live in dense urban neighborhoods, more would be built / development patterns would change.
It's weird. As I said... we live in an inner city (we're 1.5 miles from downtown core of our west coast city). You'd think our streets were busy, but ... they're less busy than the suburban street I grew up in. Here's the difference.. in a city. Few people drive. There are certainly main thoroughfares that are very crowded (my kids are not allowed to cross the large streets themselves). But within our neighborhood, bounded by large streets, the streets are really tiny and there's few drivers. My house is actually quieter than the suburban street I grew up on. It's silent at night. Cars are the noise, not people. People are quiet.
So that is to say... Yes it's parents fault. But parents are responding to their built environment, not any internal moral failing. The main issue is that parents are unable to understand the consequences of suburban living.
> My guess is probably not. And that’s not the kids’ doing— that’s OUR doing.
It's parent's doing both because of their regulations. It's also parent's doing because parents choose to live in suburbia / pay a premium to do so. If parents paid premiums to live in dense urban neighborhoods, more would be built / development patterns would change.
It's weird. As I said... we live in an inner city (we're 1.5 miles from downtown core of our west coast city). You'd think our streets were busy, but ... they're less busy than the suburban street I grew up in. Here's the difference.. in a city. Few people drive. There are certainly main thoroughfares that are very crowded (my kids are not allowed to cross the large streets themselves). But within our neighborhood, bounded by large streets, the streets are really tiny and there's few drivers. My house is actually quieter than the suburban street I grew up on. It's silent at night. Cars are the noise, not people. People are quiet.
So that is to say... Yes it's parents fault. But parents are responding to their built environment, not any internal moral failing. The main issue is that parents are unable to understand the consequences of suburban living.