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Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

You can also have more parks and fields that are well-maintained and available in proportions appropriate to the local population (i.e. not held at existing supply through density changes). It is a false dichotomy to suggest we have to choose between kids playing outside and having streets for transportation.

Not to mention that anyone who grew up pre-Internet or pre-smartphones knows that the real barriers to kids playing outside are more cultural/societal.

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I think the ability to get to the parks and fields without parental intervention is important in itself. I live in a neighborhood in Sydney where many of our streets are traffic sewers that people blast through at amazing (relatively speaking) speeds. As a large, visible adult, I walk the dog every day and 1-2 times out of 10 some idiot on a street 50m from my house doesn't know what the rules on a crosswalk are. People love to go on tirades about helicopter parents but given the quality of driving (also something that seems to have taken a hit from "Internet and smartphones") they haven't spent too much time thinking about the implications of what it's like to be an impulsive kid who will be mostly invisible stepping out behind a car, in a world where a lot of drivers are impatient and distracted.

There's a huge change in the vibe of having older kids (who can, despite the roads, go out and freely interact with their peers) and younger kids who aren't sensible enough to deal with the streets (and yes, this isn't just paranoia, we had a couple bad incidents in the peer group).

It's not an either/or with the Internet/smartphones, either. I think there's a lot of interaction between these factors ("kids go out less because games/internet are so compelling" vs "kids spend long hours on devices because they are stuck at home") in both directions.

That seems to me like a different problem (one of education or enforcement of traffic laws), although I acknowledge that a middle ground helps. I have not had the same experience as you where I am - maybe that is because we have traffic signals in some places, or crosswalks with flashing lights in others, or more courteous drivers for the rest of it (unmarked crossings), but I definitely feel plenty safe walking around.

I also wanted to add one more thought: kids are a lot more capable than parents give them credit for. This underestimation of kids' abilities is particularly prevalent in modern Western societies - if you travel to less developed nations, young children are able to successfully navigate complex cities with much more unforgiving streets unsupervised, with confidence.

>That seems to me like a different problem (one of education or enforcement of traffic laws), although I acknowledge that a middle ground helps.

The choice boils down to a dense, very large police force, versus streets designed to make good behavior natural. The latter can be a lot cheaper (and will involve many fewer tickets) than the former.

> and will involve many fewer tickets

Given that many cities and police forces rely on traffic fines (and in the US, on civil forfeiture), the choice for city governments is skewed towards more enforcement...

There's no reason why this couldn't be replaced by tax revenue though. I know I'd vote for a tax to fund police if it was explicitly stated that this would allow them to stop picking people up on petty crimes.

There's a crosswalk I pass on my way to work that always makes me think of this. An elementary school is located there, and every weekday morning there is a crossing guard (someone with lights and a hand sign who stops traffic to help kids cross) posted there. To be sure, I expect this person is indeed necessary, as traffic in that area is heavy and fast. But it strikes me as a dysfunctional that we need people dedicated just to allowing children to safely cross the street.

> That seems to me like a different problem (one of education or enforcement of traffic laws)

A child walking next to a road is in a situation where any mistake they make is reasonably likely to result in their death. No amount of education and enforcement is going to improve driver's reflexes and awareness enough to keep them from killing a kid who suddenly does something impulsive.

> if you travel to less developed nations, young children are able to successfully navigate complex cities with much more unforgiving streets unsupervised, with confidence.

In less developed nations, drivers have to be constantly on the lookout for random things on the road, like cows. If my kids do something random, they'll be the only random thing a US driver will encounter that week, and people aren't prepared for it.

I don't feel, strictly speaking, unsafe. Just annoyed at a personal level - obviously this happens enough (in fact, it happened again between my last post and this one!) that I'm very alert for it. However, I'm a large adult crossing in a very high visibility zone and am alert.

As for the 'kids are capable' thing - yes. We had our youngest going places independently at an age where our older child (~3 years apart) had peers whose parents were still driving them around. But the argument from LDCs is pretty terrible, as they have orders of magnitude more traffic deaths.

LDCs also typically have a culture of 'negotiation' of crossing roads where you kinda just have to get up on your hind legs and cross (anarchy makes drivers far more alert) while we have a culture of strict rules ("if you cross at the wrong place you are doing the wrong thing and it's your own fault that the driver just ran into you"). The 'rules culture' tends to make drivers feel that they can just zoom wherever they feel like and shut off mental collision avoidance algorithms with anything that isn't another car. This phenomenon is behind the whole 'naked streets' thing (not that I'm a fan, but the diagnosis is pretty good).

> Not to mention that anyone who grew up pre-Internet or pre-smartphones knows that the real barriers to kids playing outside are more cultural/societal.

I did, and 100% that's not the barrier today. I moved my kids from a neighborhood packed with cars to one with several dead-end streets and no through traffic and the change in my kids' lives has been shocking. They almost never wanted to play outside before because they couldn't really get anywhere safely. Now they are outside until dark nearly every day they aren't in school.

This isn't even addressing your ridiculous assumption that cities/towns can just easily add parks and fields. Those things take up space and people without kids don't care at all about them and want that land for their condos.

Always good to hear anecdotes like yours, so thanks for sharing. Dead-end streets and no through traffic can make some difference; but that's also saying that we need suburban towns or suburban-like neighborhoods within cities for those with families (which is valid IMO). However it isn't really practical for the next notch higher of density in terms of transit throughput, unless people are willing to give up personal point-to-point transit in favor of mass transit (which has its own tradeoffs).

I am also not assuming cities/towns can "just" add parks and fields. It is something they can do if they prioritize it and have the political will to execute. And even if it were not pragmatic for an already fully-built-up locale, I am making the point as a general matter of planning or noting what is desirable in a town.

One thing I did not understand: why do you think people without kids will not care about parks (which they can enjoy as well), but will care enough about kids to make their own street access more painful?

The cultural problems are definitely the more problematic ones. My kids run around the neighborhood, but they do so nearly alone, because nobody else's kids are allowed the same freedom. I'm hoping that once the other parents see that my kids haven't been killed by a roving serial killer then they'll let their kids come out too, but there's not much I can do beyond that.

"mommy can I walk ten blocks to the park"

"mommy can I go outside, the local kids are playing soccer in the street"

also, have fun making the case for the land purchase, remodeling, and ongoing maintenance budget for that new park

Making the case for changing streets to either not carry cars or enforce extremely low speeds is also difficult. We need fast, convenient transport so we can spend more time on other things, after all.

But I also don't think reality is always walking 10 blocks to get to the park. That may be true in some implementations, but it doesn't have to be that way and it was not for me growing up. And even if it was, kids used to bike much longer distances on the sidewalk to get to their friends' places or a park or whatever.

My parents needed a lot of convincing that riding a bike on the road was safe. And I was 19 at the time. Also my suburb has no sidewalks and the nearest oval is an hour walk away.

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