12 ms·

Disappointing that an article like this wouldn’t mention one of the main reasons children are given less autonomy in the US: our built environment. The vast maj

Disappointing that an article like this wouldn’t mention one of the main reasons children are given less autonomy in the US: our built environment. The vast majority of our children grow up in neighborhoods in which one can’t easily be a pedestrian at any age. Low density communities, in which almost all trips have to be taken in cars, are of course not friendly to non-drivers. Japan builds dense, mixed use neighborhoods. As a result, children are empowered to walk to the store or a friend’s house.

ozfive 4y ago
I think another part of it is that people don't know their neighbors as well as they used to. Here in Seattle there is a problem called the Seattle freeze and when you encounter other people who won't even say hello back to you in passing let alone can have a conversation with you become weary of who they are in private and how they could be a threat to your children.
yu-carm-kror 4y ago
Agreed. I sometimes feel tense crossing big box parking lots where mostly no space has been designated to walking. Imagine a small person surrounded by pickup trucks and SUV’s from which they’re completely invisible.
malkia 4y ago
I grew up in Bulgaria, but my experience as a kid (80s-90s) seems like similar to what my (future) boss (in Los Angeles) when he was growing up in SF Valley (60s-70s) - get on the bike, go places, school, etc. We had much smaller amount of cars. For one we had these self-made wood carts with ball-bearings as "tires", and we would slide with them on the streets while other cars were driving. Ok, not on the main street, but somewhere on a hill. If I get bloodied, my gramma would be - yaaah it's fine. Go to the doctor (by myself, 2nd grade) and get tetanous shot (I vividly remember this when I stepped on a rusty nail). They were still worried, but I guess due to lack of phones (even land line wasn't covered well), that's the best they can do. One day, I was 4, maybe 5, me and my cousin (year older) decided (well it was my decision apparently, lol) that we need our plastic toy truck from my grandparents, and decided to take it. So we took off from a small city (Tzhernomortez) nearby my home city (Burgas) - and decide to walk it - I haven't checked - but the distance is 20-30km. So we walk, put some signs down, ate some really bad grassy looking thing, a bus of janitors/workers picked us up and left us somewhere, so probably from 9:00AM somewhere to 2, 3pm was our "trip". And we end up knocking on my grandparents door - we need our truck! :) - Well, yes everyone was spooked (normal), but that was it. It was later just told as funny story. Now many years later, in US, with my son (~15 soon) I'm still spooked where he goes, we have the tracker (he's okay with it) and track each other in case something happens. I wish I had less available information... But also the streets in the US, even in neighbourhoods where people live, not work are just too damn wide :) - and cars, while observing most of the time the speed limits, when comes traffic time and they look for shortcuts, some of them go way too fast (and yes, I probably did the same in other places, when in a hurry). We had our neighbour's two dogs killed, because someone was swerving too fast, where you should slow down to a crawl really. But it is, what it is.
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  > Now many years later, in US, with my son (~15 soon) I'm still spooked where he goes, we have the tracker (he's okay with it) and track each other in case something happens. I wish I had less available information... You wish you had less available information? So turn the the tracker off?
- Cipater 4y ago
  You have a tracker on your 15 year old son? Isn't that extreme?
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
    > Isn't that extreme? What do you think smart phones are? That's exactly what they're optimized for, in addition to mass distraction and aimless and feckless doom scrolling for dopamine that is. I can't post because i triggered the algo: > My wife and I use Apple's "Find My" feature to keep tabs on when each other will be home. Makes it easy to time dinner so it's hot for everyone. The Silicon Valley TV series was great not just because it called out the Valley's BS tropes and made fun of it's absurdity, but because Judge really had the best material write itself: this is a prime example of what I could see an episode's plot being based on. A (smart) phone being used not to actually call each other, but as the spy device that it is. Sadly, in it's latter seasons it went into a territory it's writers neither understood or articulated well but appealed to the lowest common denominator: Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
    - Cipater 4y ago
      Billions of people have smartphones. How many of them use them to keep track of their loved one's movements?
      - greedo 4y ago
        My wife and I use Apple's "Find My" feature to keep tabs on when each other will be home. Makes it easy to time dinner so it's hot for everyone.
robonerd 4y ago
I don't think this is the main reason. It fails to explain why neighborhoods that kids played freely in decades ago now keep their kids inside. I'm talking about suburban neighborhoods in modest towns that haven't seen population growth or urban development. I used to walk to school frequently, every time I missed the bus it was a two mile walk down country roads. If the weather was nice, sometimes I'd choose to walk without even missing the bus. My mother retired from that school district last year, and she tells me things are very different. She would be required to report any kid who was walking to school, it simply isn't allowed anymore. So what changed? Did the town get bigger? Nope, it actually shrunk a bit since the plant was sold. Did the roads get narrower? Twistier? Nope, they're the same as they ever were. The school? Still the same place they ever were. The only thing that changed was people became more fearful.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Is it an elementary school? In our rural school district, you're probably not even going to be on the school bus schedule if you live within a mile unless you're still in elementary school. In middle school/high school you can have up to a 1 mile walk to the bus before they will add a new stop. Elementary school kids have to be farther than 1/4 mile from the bus stop before they add a new stop. Bear in mind though, that a lot of these rules are because it gets so cold here and they don't want 6 year-olds walking a mile to school in a blizzard when it's -20F.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Elementary school through highschool. All those schools were within about a mile radius of each other and were served by the same school buses for all grades.
- ericmay 4y ago
  I think it's hard to get a read on this and it really depends. For example, where I live there's an elementary school in the neighborhood, low traffic (even though it is the suburbs), and there's a walking path and a playground at the school. When the weather is halfway decent, there are kids streaming through there all day. During the pandemic it was just a party back there, in a good way. But not all suburbs are like this, and I do think that low density and focusing on cars over people makes kids unlikely to go outside. Where I live, yea the school is nice, but I've seen kids standing in the middle of 5 lanes of traffic (they are standing in the turning lane) trying to pass and standing there with, say, a skateboard. This is definitely a problem. On the other hand, I think kids are just staying inside and playing with electronics more too. But why are they doing that? Is the neighborhood not stimulating enough? Is there anything to do outside? Again in the suburbs I'm in, what is a kid to do? You can't really walk to any store, park (besides the school area), or anywhere else. You can't even bike anywhere. You'd definitely get hit by a car at some point. So I think it's a bit of a cultural shift, sure, but I think that doesn't account for poor urban planning. Most likely in the past kids were just so damn bored that they'd overcome crappy neighborhoods because there was literally nothing else to do. Now? Why risk riding down a country road on your bike and getting hit by a car when you can just sit at home and text your friends?
1970-01-01 4y ago
Absolutely correct. The USA worships the car's speed above the child's freedom.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > Absolutely correct. The USA worships the car's speed above the child's freedom. To be honest, this was never really a consideration in my calculus growing up, and I did so during the age of the super car going into hypercar era in SoCal and the presence of those cars around us would become a large part of our 'tuner' culture as it's literately the car mod capital of the World. Never once did that deter us from hitting the street on skateboards, rollerblades etc.., in fact I like to believe I was part of a large collection of 90s kids who invented street luging on hills where lots of sports cars were hitting the canyons. Honestly, this is peak over-regulation trying to pawn off the horrendous outcomes on cars because that is the convenient target de jure: I went from having a modest car and motorcycle collection to now simply having 3 must-haves and I honestly I've ridden 10000s more miles via public transportation this year (planes included) whereas I've only driven like 200 miles via car. And I did for environmental reasons as an environmental activist that traveled all over the World for projects where I could see first hand the damage of climate change, I didn't need some app or social media brigrading to change my mind as I was capable of seeing what government, petrol companies and Auto makers collusion can do: I worked at VW during Dieselgate. The problem stems from parents deferring their responsibilities to the State when it comes to every facet of Life, and that is why these kids are soft and need safe spaces and feel threatened by anything that is against their idealized narratives. Universities pander to these clients because they often have the most resources as opposed to those who simply made their way up the hard way--excluding SATS was a red herring, most of the kids who got into Prestigious/Ivy Leagues didn't need them in the first place as legacy admissions plays a big part, and where that fails they'll just bribe them as we've ween before [0]. This is what happens when you allow and standardize nepotism, and it always back fires as the following generations are simply not capable of enduring anything after being sheltered their whole life. This is one of the reasons that Silicon Valley is the cesspool that it is now, it's culture went from rugged entrepreneurialism in the 50s-90s when it was mainly an extension of Californian culture that changed the World to what is now a woke dystopia that caters and panders to the least capable form the right schools but is none the less optimized using lemmings to do the busy leg work for vulture capitalists with deep ties to VC that seek to mine your data as a business model. Honestly, this is why I have no sympathy for what is happening in the Valley right now, you made your own hell now fix it if you really think you're so bright and deserve the acclaim that you think you're entitled to. Sure, you've collectively made a feudal lords (FAANG) immensely wealthy beyond comprehension, but beyond that you've done nothing to' make the 'World a better place.' In fact you're the useful idiot you speak down to here, but are oblivious to the fact you're the worst of the worst when it comes to that. The sad thing is, it's mainly transplants that made it this way. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_briber...
alistairSH 4y ago
It feels like a mix of both. Even in my relatively walkable suburb (Reston, VA), it's not really walkable by a child. And things are far enough that a bike is better. But, just around the beltway in Silver Spring, there was a family that made the news a few years ago because they let their kids walk to/from the playground. This was a few city blocks, in an urban area. Somebody saw the kids, went full Karen and called the police, and child protective services got involved. It was a mess.
- burlesona 4y ago
  Afterwards Texas and Oklahoma both passed laws that parents are allowed to let their kids play outside unsupervised. Kinda sad that was necessary.
- jandrese 4y ago
  Reston is hit and miss for pedestrians. It was built during the height of automobile centered development, but the primary constituents were artists who cared about aesthetics. It has a lot of housing developments that are fully equipped with sidewalks, but are also not near much of anything. You can walk, but not really go anywhere. At least it's not Tysons Corner. They're going to be spending decades trying to undo the damage done by the car centric design.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    You can walk, but not really go anywhere Yeah, not as bad as Ashburn, but not as good as Ballston or Clarendon (both of which now qualify as fully urban). They added bike lanes to the major road outside my subdivision. Great, except they stop for 2 blocks near the school complex (ES, MS, HS on same big plot) because they needed extra turn lanes for cars. And then stopped the bike lanes again for 2 blocks near the shopping center for the same reason. So, the two places you'd want to ride a bike aren't connected. Massive failure. I sometimes wonder if VDOT/Fairfax planners half-ass these things on purpose just to prove "but nobody uses the bike lanes, see, empty!"
DamnYuppie 4y ago
I don't really agree with that. I grew up in a small rural town where things were quite spread out. I would run and ride my bike all over the "neighborhood", which would encompass an area of well over 4 square miles. We had small dirt roads with no shoulders or sidewalks and we would ride our bikes down them, if someone came up behind you would get out of the way. It was not at all uncommon to have a groups of 5 and 6 year olds out and about. I think the biggest thing is parents have embraced fear over reason and are terrified something bad might happen to their child.
- saulrh 4y ago
  > small dirt roads with no shoulders ...on which cars are limited to very low speeds and make a great deal of noise. Bicycles are barely safe on asphalt even when they have bike lanes.
- agentwiggles 4y ago
  I grew up in a small rural town as well, and this post gave me major nostalgia. When I was 7 or so, my parents limited me to a pretty small area (it was our "block", but that had a pretty different meaning from what most city folk would think of when they hear "block"). At some point, my limits were updated, and I was allowed to go anywhere that did not involve crossing the main street in the town (which at the time was a reasonably busy section of OH SR 30.) I'd ride to my grandma's house for a Coke or some ice cream and chat with her for hours at a time. There was a local playground near her house with the old school kind of swings that really let you get high up in the air. I remember vividly the day when I discovered that I could ride my bike to the local Dollar General via a back route without crossing that street and the sense of freedom that gave me. I could also make the 2 mile ride to my best friend's house. When I was a bit less than 10, the restriction on crossing that street was lifted, and the whole town was open to me. My friends and I rode our bikes absolutely everywhere and explored creeks, parks, and country roads like there was no tomorrow. Now I live in a medium sized city, and every once in a while, I think about the proximity to family and the freedom to roam that I enjoyed growing up. More than anything else about home, I miss these things, and I have to wonder if I'm denying something to my kids by living in the city. Sadly, there aren't many software dev gigs in rural Ohio, and now that my kids are entrenched in the local schools (which, to be fair, are miles ahead of what exists back home), their upbringing as city kids seems to be written in stone. Anyway, sorry for the rant - waxed nostalgic for a bit there.
kazinator 4y ago
Low density is not the reason you have to walk a long way to get to a house that it would take you seconds to get to if you climbed a backyard fence. It's just the stupid tree-of-cul-de-sacs layout. Most of Japan isn't dense; it's single-family, detached dwellings. Those neighborhoods are walkable in spite of that. In metropolitan areas like around Tokyo, sure the houses are on small plots and close together; but houses are houses. It's still pretty low density.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
You said that mixed-use neighborhoods lead to empowered children. Really? If that were the case, there'd be empowered children in mixed-use neighborhoods all over the world, including in the US. But that clearly isn't the case. Most of Japan is rural. It's not uncommon to walk or bike up to an hour away to get to the nearest store. Yet children are still given responsibility and agency. In fact, it may be much more common in rural areas around the world rather than in dense mixed-use neighborhoods. But that's not the reason either. It's clear that both urban mixed-use neighborhoods and rural communities have nearly the same consideration about children, within a single country/culture. If a society perceives it as safe and a good idea (or even necessary) for a child to run errands, then that's what happens. If the society perceives it as unsafe or irresponsible, then they don't. It's nothing more than a culture meme.
- fomine3 4y ago
  > Most of Japan is rural. It's not uncommon to walk or bike up to an hour away to get to the nearest store. This is exaggerated. There are some people live in such rural area, but definitely not majority in every prefecture. I agree latter part, since such rural area is very few risk.
hemreldop 4y ago
Nonsense, kids have met up in car centric suburbs in the US for decades now. The problem is a combination of stranger danger, nosy, entitled neighbors and the incredible powers of CPS and the internet/video game indoor culture.
jkhdigital 4y ago
> Japan builds dense, mixed use neighborhoods. This is true, but it’s not like they have an alternative. The population density and mountainous terrain pretty much dictates the urban design. I’d say the UK is a better comparison, I was quite surprised to see tightly packed row houses even out in the countryside where open space appeared to be plentiful.
stychos 4y ago
That's wrong. Perpendicularly opposite arguments for the same questions are in the well-crowded cities in exUSSR eastern europe. It's just a result of masses controlling. By the fear.

ozfive 4y ago

I think another part of it is that people don't know their neighbors as well as they used to. Here in Seattle there is a problem called the Seattle freeze and when you encounter other people who won't even say hello back to you in passing let alone can have a conversation with you become weary of who they are in private and how they could be a threat to your children.

yu-carm-kror 4y ago

Agreed. I sometimes feel tense crossing big box parking lots where mostly no space has been designated to walking. Imagine a small person surrounded by pickup trucks and SUV’s from which they’re completely invisible.

malkia 4y ago

I grew up in Bulgaria, but my experience as a kid (80s-90s) seems like similar to what my (future) boss (in Los Angeles) when he was growing up in SF Valley (60s-70s) - get on the bike, go places, school, etc. We had much smaller amount of cars. For one we had these self-made wood carts with ball-bearings as "tires", and we would slide with them on the streets while other cars were driving. Ok, not on the main street, but somewhere on a hill. If I get bloodied, my gramma would be - yaaah it's fine. Go to the doctor (by myself, 2nd grade) and get tetanous shot (I vividly remember this when I stepped on a rusty nail). They were still worried, but I guess due to lack of phones (even land line wasn't covered well), that's the best they can do. One day, I was 4, maybe 5, me and my cousin (year older) decided (well it was my decision apparently, lol) that we need our plastic toy truck from my grandparents, and decided to take it. So we took off from a small city (Tzhernomortez) nearby my home city (Burgas) - and decide to walk it - I haven't checked - but the distance is 20-30km. So we walk, put some signs down, ate some really bad grassy looking thing, a bus of janitors/workers picked us up and left us somewhere, so probably from 9:00AM somewhere to 2, 3pm was our "trip". And we end up knocking on my grandparents door - we need our truck! :) - Well, yes everyone was spooked (normal), but that was it. It was later just told as funny story. Now many years later, in US, with my son (~15 soon) I'm still spooked where he goes, we have the tracker (he's okay with it) and track each other in case something happens. I wish I had less available information... But also the streets in the US, even in neighbourhoods where people live, not work are just too damn wide :) - and cars, while observing most of the time the speed limits, when comes traffic time and they look for shortcuts, some of them go way too fast (and yes, I probably did the same in other places, when in a hurry). We had our neighbour's two dogs killed, because someone was swerving too fast, where you should slow down to a crawl really. But it is, what it is.

CogitoCogito 4y ago
> Now many years later, in US, with my son (~15 soon) I'm still spooked where he goes, we have the tracker (he's okay with it) and track each other in case something happens. I wish I had less available information... You wish you had less available information? So turn the the tracker off?
Cipater 4y ago
You have a tracker on your 15 year old son? Isn't that extreme?
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > Isn't that extreme? What do you think smart phones are? That's exactly what they're optimized for, in addition to mass distraction and aimless and feckless doom scrolling for dopamine that is. I can't post because i triggered the algo: > My wife and I use Apple's "Find My" feature to keep tabs on when each other will be home. Makes it easy to time dinner so it's hot for everyone. The Silicon Valley TV series was great not just because it called out the Valley's BS tropes and made fun of it's absurdity, but because Judge really had the best material write itself: this is a prime example of what I could see an episode's plot being based on. A (smart) phone being used not to actually call each other, but as the spy device that it is. Sadly, in it's latter seasons it went into a territory it's writers neither understood or articulated well but appealed to the lowest common denominator: Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
  - Cipater 4y ago
    Billions of people have smartphones. How many of them use them to keep track of their loved one's movements?
    - greedo 4y ago
      My wife and I use Apple's "Find My" feature to keep tabs on when each other will be home. Makes it easy to time dinner so it's hot for everyone.

robonerd 4y ago

I don't think this is the main reason. It fails to explain why neighborhoods that kids played freely in decades ago now keep their kids inside. I'm talking about suburban neighborhoods in modest towns that haven't seen population growth or urban development. I used to walk to school frequently, every time I missed the bus it was a two mile walk down country roads. If the weather was nice, sometimes I'd choose to walk without even missing the bus. My mother retired from that school district last year, and she tells me things are very different. She would be required to report any kid who was walking to school, it simply isn't allowed anymore. So what changed? Did the town get bigger? Nope, it actually shrunk a bit since the plant was sold. Did the roads get narrower? Twistier? Nope, they're the same as they ever were. The school? Still the same place they ever were. The only thing that changed was people became more fearful.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
Is it an elementary school? In our rural school district, you're probably not even going to be on the school bus schedule if you live within a mile unless you're still in elementary school. In middle school/high school you can have up to a 1 mile walk to the bus before they will add a new stop. Elementary school kids have to be farther than 1/4 mile from the bus stop before they add a new stop. Bear in mind though, that a lot of these rules are because it gets so cold here and they don't want 6 year-olds walking a mile to school in a blizzard when it's -20F.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Elementary school through highschool. All those schools were within about a mile radius of each other and were served by the same school buses for all grades.
ericmay 4y ago
I think it's hard to get a read on this and it really depends. For example, where I live there's an elementary school in the neighborhood, low traffic (even though it is the suburbs), and there's a walking path and a playground at the school. When the weather is halfway decent, there are kids streaming through there all day. During the pandemic it was just a party back there, in a good way. But not all suburbs are like this, and I do think that low density and focusing on cars over people makes kids unlikely to go outside. Where I live, yea the school is nice, but I've seen kids standing in the middle of 5 lanes of traffic (they are standing in the turning lane) trying to pass and standing there with, say, a skateboard. This is definitely a problem. On the other hand, I think kids are just staying inside and playing with electronics more too. But why are they doing that? Is the neighborhood not stimulating enough? Is there anything to do outside? Again in the suburbs I'm in, what is a kid to do? You can't really walk to any store, park (besides the school area), or anywhere else. You can't even bike anywhere. You'd definitely get hit by a car at some point. So I think it's a bit of a cultural shift, sure, but I think that doesn't account for poor urban planning. Most likely in the past kids were just so damn bored that they'd overcome crappy neighborhoods because there was literally nothing else to do. Now? Why risk riding down a country road on your bike and getting hit by a car when you can just sit at home and text your friends?

1970-01-01 4y ago

Absolutely correct. The USA worships the car's speed above the child's freedom.

Melting_Harps 4y ago
> Absolutely correct. The USA worships the car's speed above the child's freedom. To be honest, this was never really a consideration in my calculus growing up, and I did so during the age of the super car going into hypercar era in SoCal and the presence of those cars around us would become a large part of our 'tuner' culture as it's literately the car mod capital of the World. Never once did that deter us from hitting the street on skateboards, rollerblades etc.., in fact I like to believe I was part of a large collection of 90s kids who invented street luging on hills where lots of sports cars were hitting the canyons. Honestly, this is peak over-regulation trying to pawn off the horrendous outcomes on cars because that is the convenient target de jure: I went from having a modest car and motorcycle collection to now simply having 3 must-haves and I honestly I've ridden 10000s more miles via public transportation this year (planes included) whereas I've only driven like 200 miles via car. And I did for environmental reasons as an environmental activist that traveled all over the World for projects where I could see first hand the damage of climate change, I didn't need some app or social media brigrading to change my mind as I was capable of seeing what government, petrol companies and Auto makers collusion can do: I worked at VW during Dieselgate. The problem stems from parents deferring their responsibilities to the State when it comes to every facet of Life, and that is why these kids are soft and need safe spaces and feel threatened by anything that is against their idealized narratives. Universities pander to these clients because they often have the most resources as opposed to those who simply made their way up the hard way--excluding SATS was a red herring, most of the kids who got into Prestigious/Ivy Leagues didn't need them in the first place as legacy admissions plays a big part, and where that fails they'll just bribe them as we've ween before [0]. This is what happens when you allow and standardize nepotism, and it always back fires as the following generations are simply not capable of enduring anything after being sheltered their whole life. This is one of the reasons that Silicon Valley is the cesspool that it is now, it's culture went from rugged entrepreneurialism in the 50s-90s when it was mainly an extension of Californian culture that changed the World to what is now a woke dystopia that caters and panders to the least capable form the right schools but is none the less optimized using lemmings to do the busy leg work for vulture capitalists with deep ties to VC that seek to mine your data as a business model. Honestly, this is why I have no sympathy for what is happening in the Valley right now, you made your own hell now fix it if you really think you're so bright and deserve the acclaim that you think you're entitled to. Sure, you've collectively made a feudal lords (FAANG) immensely wealthy beyond comprehension, but beyond that you've done nothing to' make the 'World a better place.' In fact you're the useful idiot you speak down to here, but are oblivious to the fact you're the worst of the worst when it comes to that. The sad thing is, it's mainly transplants that made it this way. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_briber...

alistairSH 4y ago

It feels like a mix of both. Even in my relatively walkable suburb (Reston, VA), it's not really walkable by a child. And things are far enough that a bike is better. But, just around the beltway in Silver Spring, there was a family that made the news a few years ago because they let their kids walk to/from the playground. This was a few city blocks, in an urban area. Somebody saw the kids, went full Karen and called the police, and child protective services got involved. It was a mess.

burlesona 4y ago
Afterwards Texas and Oklahoma both passed laws that parents are allowed to let their kids play outside unsupervised. Kinda sad that was necessary.
jandrese 4y ago
Reston is hit and miss for pedestrians. It was built during the height of automobile centered development, but the primary constituents were artists who cared about aesthetics. It has a lot of housing developments that are fully equipped with sidewalks, but are also not near much of anything. You can walk, but not really go anywhere. At least it's not Tysons Corner. They're going to be spending decades trying to undo the damage done by the car centric design.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  You can walk, but not really go anywhere Yeah, not as bad as Ashburn, but not as good as Ballston or Clarendon (both of which now qualify as fully urban). They added bike lanes to the major road outside my subdivision. Great, except they stop for 2 blocks near the school complex (ES, MS, HS on same big plot) because they needed extra turn lanes for cars. And then stopped the bike lanes again for 2 blocks near the shopping center for the same reason. So, the two places you'd want to ride a bike aren't connected. Massive failure. I sometimes wonder if VDOT/Fairfax planners half-ass these things on purpose just to prove "but nobody uses the bike lanes, see, empty!"

DamnYuppie 4y ago

I don't really agree with that. I grew up in a small rural town where things were quite spread out. I would run and ride my bike all over the "neighborhood", which would encompass an area of well over 4 square miles. We had small dirt roads with no shoulders or sidewalks and we would ride our bikes down them, if someone came up behind you would get out of the way. It was not at all uncommon to have a groups of 5 and 6 year olds out and about. I think the biggest thing is parents have embraced fear over reason and are terrified something bad might happen to their child.

saulrh 4y ago
> small dirt roads with no shoulders ...on which cars are limited to very low speeds and make a great deal of noise. Bicycles are barely safe on asphalt even when they have bike lanes.
agentwiggles 4y ago
I grew up in a small rural town as well, and this post gave me major nostalgia. When I was 7 or so, my parents limited me to a pretty small area (it was our "block", but that had a pretty different meaning from what most city folk would think of when they hear "block"). At some point, my limits were updated, and I was allowed to go anywhere that did not involve crossing the main street in the town (which at the time was a reasonably busy section of OH SR 30.) I'd ride to my grandma's house for a Coke or some ice cream and chat with her for hours at a time. There was a local playground near her house with the old school kind of swings that really let you get high up in the air. I remember vividly the day when I discovered that I could ride my bike to the local Dollar General via a back route without crossing that street and the sense of freedom that gave me. I could also make the 2 mile ride to my best friend's house. When I was a bit less than 10, the restriction on crossing that street was lifted, and the whole town was open to me. My friends and I rode our bikes absolutely everywhere and explored creeks, parks, and country roads like there was no tomorrow. Now I live in a medium sized city, and every once in a while, I think about the proximity to family and the freedom to roam that I enjoyed growing up. More than anything else about home, I miss these things, and I have to wonder if I'm denying something to my kids by living in the city. Sadly, there aren't many software dev gigs in rural Ohio, and now that my kids are entrenched in the local schools (which, to be fair, are miles ahead of what exists back home), their upbringing as city kids seems to be written in stone. Anyway, sorry for the rant - waxed nostalgic for a bit there.

kazinator 4y ago

Low density is not the reason you have to walk a long way to get to a house that it would take you seconds to get to if you climbed a backyard fence. It's just the stupid tree-of-cul-de-sacs layout. Most of Japan isn't dense; it's single-family, detached dwellings. Those neighborhoods are walkable in spite of that. In metropolitan areas like around Tokyo, sure the houses are on small plots and close together; but houses are houses. It's still pretty low density.

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0xbadcafebee 4y ago

You said that mixed-use neighborhoods lead to empowered children. Really? If that were the case, there'd be empowered children in mixed-use neighborhoods all over the world, including in the US. But that clearly isn't the case. Most of Japan is rural. It's not uncommon to walk or bike up to an hour away to get to the nearest store. Yet children are still given responsibility and agency. In fact, it may be much more common in rural areas around the world rather than in dense mixed-use neighborhoods. But that's not the reason either. It's clear that both urban mixed-use neighborhoods and rural communities have nearly the same consideration about children, within a single country/culture. If a society perceives it as safe and a good idea (or even necessary) for a child to run errands, then that's what happens. If the society perceives it as unsafe or irresponsible, then they don't. It's nothing more than a culture meme.

fomine3 4y ago
> Most of Japan is rural. It's not uncommon to walk or bike up to an hour away to get to the nearest store. This is exaggerated. There are some people live in such rural area, but definitely not majority in every prefecture. I agree latter part, since such rural area is very few risk.

hemreldop 4y ago

Nonsense, kids have met up in car centric suburbs in the US for decades now. The problem is a combination of stranger danger, nosy, entitled neighbors and the incredible powers of CPS and the internet/video game indoor culture.

jkhdigital 4y ago

> Japan builds dense, mixed use neighborhoods. This is true, but it’s not like they have an alternative. The population density and mountainous terrain pretty much dictates the urban design. I’d say the UK is a better comparison, I was quite surprised to see tightly packed row houses even out in the countryside where open space appeared to be plentiful.

stychos 4y ago

That's wrong. Perpendicularly opposite arguments for the same questions are in the well-crowded cities in exUSSR eastern europe. It's just a result of masses controlling. By the fear.