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Comment by namesbc | Hacker News Reader

Imagine a world where instead of having to strap your screaming kids in to a car seat for an hour drive in traffic, you walked along a pedestrian street, your kids kicking a ball around, you visit a couple stores, see your kids off to their school, and then walk a couple more blocks to work.

When school is over your kids walk safely back home by themselves because there aren't cars out there threatening their lives.

This sounds way less stressful than your kids being dependent on you and your car for everything they need.

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I don't thing this is what codebolt was talking about.

If you can one kid - there is no problem really. Walk him or her to school in the morning, ask grandmother to bring them back etc.

When you have more than one - it is entrily possible they will end up going to different schools and after the school one of them had to go to the music shool and the other one to his hockey team or something etc etc. You simply can't do this without a car.

I was the only child in the family so we never needed a car for this kind of scenario, plus we were living in a relatevely small city (450k), so public transport was more than enough for me, but this is not always the case.

>and then walk a couple more blocks to work.

yeah, now imaging you have two of them going to two different schools, each 40 minutes walking distance from home, different directions and your office in somewhere else too.

It’s definitely possible without a car — people here in Holland do it all the time. Maybe qualify your answer to “suburban America” and similarly (non)designed places?

Point is, it’s not fundamentally impossible to live with 2+ kids and no car.

I live in Russia though. When I went to school (1995-2005) I lived in a 450k city, now it is Moscow. And Moscow have much better public transport than many other places.

My point was about little kids, you won't send them off to a public transport. We are not talking about teenagers here. Not me at least.

Sounds like a problem of where you live(d) rather than intrinsic to cars or lack thereof.

I have 2 kids and live in Berlin and never had nor needed a car. I previously lived for 8 years in Vienna and the same holds true there.

The same will be true to most or all decently-sized western European cities.

As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves. Kids under ten might need to be accompanied by a guardian, but there are usually two parents in a household, and some grandparents will help, too. Caretakers can be hired in certain cases. Some family “pool” their kids together too, not unlike in the U.S. where parents would take turns to drive neighbors’ kids.

Also, having cars but no public transit doesn’t change the fundamental equation and doesn’t improve the situation much (especially considering the fact that in many places driving in the morning rush hours might even be slower than taking the subway), in fact quite the opposite, teenagers are wholly dependent on parents when they could have been independent.

> You simply can’t do this without a car.

I grew up like that. People have been doing that for decades.

> As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves.

This is another difference that intersects with other issues in America. In a car, your child is under your control. Moreover, adding to your following point of a child under ten being unaccompanied in public, no American parent would dream of letting their children go out alone and recently, this includes even children in their early teens. Especially in the previous decades, helicopter parenting has reached a new peak in the US, this seems somewhat coincident with a general infantalization of young adults.

It is incredibly common for kids to be alone in cities in the US. I can look out my window right now and see 2 children playing in a park with no supervision.

On my train commute every morning there were school children who get off at my stop because it’s where their school is. Their rides happen at reduced fares as well.

The trope rings very false to me and seems to be about one particular demographic (white and suburban).

If there is an increase in over watching our children it’s because we’ve over indexed on cars, not the reverse.

There have also been cases where families were threatened with/by CPS for letting their children outside without supervision. It's good to know that attitude is not universal, but it does occur.

Those cases are newsworthy, because they are newsworthy.

As kasey_junk implied, this sort of over-protectiveness is not universal in the USA. For example, NYC provides all students that live further than 1/2 mile from their school with a discounted public transit card (soon to be free). While very young kids are rare, tween and teen students can often be seen unaccompanied on mass transit. And even more often walking alone or in groups without parents. No one bats an eye except possibly to complain a bit about the groups of boisterous kids blocking the sidewalk :-)

> no American parent would dream of letting their children go out alone and recently, this includes even children in their early teens

This is, AFAICT, mostly a white suburban “middle-class” (mid-high income working class, including proletarian intelligentsia, really) attitude, rather than something that applies to all American parents.

Along with the other replies, you're right. I will say though, when we're talking about car culture, white suburban middle class types are ones to mostly support it.

So basically we change our quality of life to fit some urban ideal? My kids’ grandparents live in a different state and a different country.

A child on the BART train? You have got to be kidding. With the insane people, mentally ill, the thieves and the homeless, I would’t expose my kids to having to deal with that nonsense. Cars are awesome. Being forced to share public transportation with a bunch of weirdos isn’t progress.

I am riding home right now at 2am from the airport in Hayward to my house in Mountain View. In a car, I’ll be home soon. With public transport, I’m stranded for hours. Public transportation can’t go everywhere.

At least tens of millions of teenage or younger students take public transit to school around the world, somehow few of them seem to fall prey to “the insane people, mentally ill, the thieves and the homeless.”

Last I checked kids don’t tend to wander outside at 2am, and places with public transit tend to have taxis too. (I would add that the last thing I want to do at 2am is to drive myself home; in fact, a couple years back I had an accident due to driving jet-lagged the day following an international flight.)

Your child is probably realistically safer on a train than in your car. Deaths due to traffic accidents per year are much, _much_ greater than deaths on trains through all causes, per passenger km. Of course, people aren't great at assessing risk.

Ah, but so many families have already changed their quality of life to fit the suburban/car-centric ideal.

>A child on the BART train? You have got to be kidding. With the insane people, mentally ill, the thieves and the homeless,

Typical American paranoia.

I’m a huge proponent of the whole “free range kid” thing, and am always looking for ways to encourage my kid’s independence, but there’s no way on earth I’m putting her on BART by herself. This is not a general paranoia about trains or public transportation—it’s a specific observation about BART in particular.

Hell, I won’t take BART through certain stops at certain times of the day and I’m a grown-ass man.

>usually two parents in a household,

That's getting less true as time goes on.

>and some grandparents will help,

If your parents live more then ~45min away (this is probably true for most people) it's probably not realistic to expect them to help out with childcare.

>Caretakers can be hired in certain cases

If you have the $$$ to rationalize it. That said, if you have to choose between a caretaker and a car it's an easy choice for most people.

>I grew up like that. People have been doing that for decades.

People have been enduring hardships for centuries. It's foolish to expect them to voluntarily continue doing so when they have other options. The fact of the matter is that most people who are in a position to own a car find owning a car worth the tradeoffs.

>As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves.

Sure, after a certain age.

>Kids under ten might need to be accompanied by a guardian, but there are usually two parents in a household, and some grandparents will help, too. Caretakers can be hired in certain cases.

This works out well in a well developed coutry I suppose. In Russia, for example, most people won't have this kind of options. You want your kid safe? You take your kid to the school yourself (before 10).

And again - I've describe certain cases, not just one. We've never had a car too, but for some cases this is a necessity.

I think you're struggling to imagine the impact that good public transport has on a cities design. Schools, parks, shops, sporting facilities all start congregating around transport stops/hubs so basically everywhere you need to take kids is within a 5 minute walk of one another.

> yeah, now imaging you have two of them going to two different schools, each 40 minutes walking distance from home, different directions and your office in somewhere else too.

I can't imagine why you would send them to different schools, unless one is a high school in which case they're old enough to get there by themselves. For most people the school they're taking the kids to is right next to the transit stop they'll be taking to work.

I live in Moscow and we arguably have a very good public transpot system. Not the best, but still.

As of the rest of you comment - here is my answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20632459

Why would they need to walk 40 minutes? In countries with good public school systems, all of the public schools are equally acceptable so you just send them to the nearest one which is generally less than a mile walk away.

I think you're living in a make-believe world of homogeneity. There are vast differences between the quality of schooling - both public or private - even within global metropolises like NYC, London, Paris & Tokyo. Its downright laughable to assume otherwise.

Middle and high school do matter, but I don’t think primary/elementary/grade school — whatever you call it — makes much of a difference. I attended the average neighborhood primary school back in my day, and went on to the most competitive middle school, high school, and university.

Are you really implying a school in Croydon, a large town in south London is going to be functionally and qualitatively equivalent to say a school in Golders Green, an area in the London Borough of Barnet? [1][2]

Equivalent in all the areas one might measure the attractiveness and potential of a school?

[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croydon

[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golders_Green

edit:typo

I know nothing about schooling in England, but I would imagine the parents’ education as well as socioeconomic status plays a much greater role than elementary schooling, as is the case everywhere else.

The UK is a pretty poor example since it's a very elitist country.

I live in London, and I don't get your point. There are OFSTED Outstanding-rated schools both in Croydon and Golders Green.

You've linked to the wrong wikipedia article, and used the word "town", which leads me to think you don't understand London much.

Is there any reason you linked to wikipedia articles about a part of London with a large Jewish population vs a part of London with a large ethnic minority population?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Croydon

I just realized that. Yes the one you linked is the one I meant to use in my example.

I meant to pick a town/neighborhood with rich inhabitants (per capita) and a town/neighborhood with not so well off inhabitants.

Outside of primary schools with a very strict religious background they are really all the same. You don't look at those with exit metrics and average scores on national tests the way you do with schooling after it.

Probably depends on the country. Here in the Netherlands the difference of quality is really small between public elementary schools. Private schools are practically non-existent.

I lived in France in the south in a small town. The school was a 5 mile drive away. The grocery store was 2 miles away. My young kid went to one school, the older one to another and they were in opposite sides of the commune. In the south of France, everyone has a car. I also spent time in a small town near Bremen, Germany.. A bus game every hour. Things were far apart and yes, there, most people have cars. Suggesting “Europe” is just like Amsterdam is stereotyping and doesn’t represent reality for millions of people who don’t live in larger cities.

I live in Russia and we have different school for example. >Common >Lyceum >Gymnasium

Lyceum and Gymnasium will give you better programs, teachers, resources, special subjects etc. They have fewer seats too obviously. And you don't have too many of them.

Common schools why being generally the same - also usually have different education levels. So before sendingg your kid to one of them you do a research - what kind of teachers does the school has, does it have football field or pool, maybe even you'll look into what have become of it's graduates.

When I was in school (1995-2005) The nearest school was... okay. It wasn't bad, but you don't really expect anything of it. Half boys older than 14 were smoking already, girls not giving two shits about studies, teachers who would just to their 9 to 17 routine. So I was attending Gymnasium 20 minutes away if you take a bus.

Even as an elementary school kid I walked to school by myself or with class mates. My older brother, being in middle school by then would walk over to the next train station in the next town and take the train to his school by himself. I would do the same later-on. If your parents brought you to school every day you'd probably have been made fun of by all the other kids.

I have a different experience - with 3 kids, in a 2M city does't even have a great transport infrastructure (Bucharest). School/kindergarden is within walking distance. Highschool is farther away, indeed (because that's what the elder kid chose - she wanted a school outside the neighbourhood), but she still goes there by public transit. In fact it's probably faster by subway than by car, in the morning. Kids go to english classes, drawing classes, swimming etc. either by walking or public transit.

Maybe it "helps" that the public roads are congested, and I simply wouldn't have time to take them anywhere by car. It definitely helps that I live in a good/central neighbourhood that is well covered by public transit.

I hope this works -- street view of in front of a Japanese kindergarten. Electric 2 seater bikes are the name of the game here for 2 child families.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.675605,139.6796798,3a,75y,22...

Yep, that's what I saw in Japan recently too (both electric and non-electric). Tons of bikes had a child seat, some of them had 2 child seats.

I also loved how (as you can see in this photo), people just park their bike the way you park a car: you just leave it there, without locking it to something. Here in America bikes like that would be stolen left and right. But I guess that's one of the big differences between a highly industrialized and developed nation and a 3rd-world one.

> yeah, now imaging you have two of them going to two different schools, each 40 minutes walking distance from home, different directions and your office in somewhere else too.

I grew up in a small village (+-70k) in the Netherlands, we had 4 schools within 15 min walking distance and I think twice as many with 15 min cycling distance (all kids go to school by bike here). Why would you send your kids to schools 40 minutes walking distance from home?

edit: added number of inhabitants of the village

Why would you send your kids to schools 40 minutes walking distance from home?

Some times you don't have a choice. Happened to a friend of mine here in Sweden. Their first kid got into the school closest to home. When it was the second kids turn that school was 'full' and they got sent to a school 10 km in the exact opposite direction.

My previous answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20632459

Since the age of 11 I went to school by myself. Sports, dentist appointments and doctors too. It's very common here in Europe and I don't even live in a big city. I see kids on their bikes with a big hockey stick poking out their backpack almost daily.

You mention 40 minute walking distance, that's three kilometres for a child or about 10 minutes by bicycle. Or perhaps five stops on a tram or subway.

It took a lot of stress off my parents that my brother and me were independent from a young age. Living in a society where you don't need cars gives you that flexibility and ease.

Same for me, but I was the only child and as you've said: "Since the age of 11". It is as common here in Russia as it is in Europe.

We were talknig about kids though.

In a lot of European cities kids walk and bike themselves to school.

Even when I lived in the US as a kid me and my friends would bike to elementary school. But this was in the early 90's before everyone went completely neurotic

"yeah, now imaging you have two of them going to two different schools, each 40 minutes walking distance from home"

How old are these kids? Can they not walk themselves?

Let's say 8 and 9. They can, but they should not at that age. Not before 11-12.

> When you have more than one - it is entrily possible they will end up going to different schools and after the school one of them had to go to the music shool and the other one to his hockey team or something etc etc. You simply can't do this without a car.

In a city designed for walking and bicyling, you can do that by bike. And once they're old enough, they can do it on their own bike.

Of course the city needs to be designed for that. In a city designed only for cars, you're going to need a car for everything. The big issue here is: how do we want to design our cities?

> now imaging you have two of them going to two different schools, each 40 minutes walking distance from home, different directions and your office in somewhere else too.

If they're going to two different schools, most likely one of them is going to secondary school and can ride their own bike, or one of them is going to a special needs school and gets picked up. At least, that's how it works around here.

In any case, I don't consider 40 minutes a suitable distance for walking: take a bike. It's only a few minutes that way.

That said, my wife did insist I get a driver's license when we had kids, and I did. I rarely use it, and certainly for moving kids around the city, a light cargo bike is more practical in Amsterdam.

>If they're going to two different schools, most likely one of them is going to secondary school and can ride their own bike, or one of them is going to a special needs school and gets picked up. At least, that's how it works around here.

My other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20632459

As for the 'secondary' school - I, for example, was attending a Gymnasium as main and a musical Lyceum as a secondary. Both since 6-7 years old. And that's pretty common over here.

A single kid going to two different schools is extremely rare here, but as it happens, that's exactly what my son has doing since he was 8: a regular school just around the corner, and a "day a week" school for gifted children which is a bit further away. I take him there by bike. A car wouldn't add much value for me there.

But Amsterdam is a sizable yet compact city, which makes everything easy to reach. In a differently designed city, or a smaller town where you might have to travel to another town, things can be completely different.

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