It was a half-mile away. All side-streets.
Of course, that was back in the 1970's, when crime in the USA was but a fraction of what it is today! ;-)
Crime rate in 1974 is higher than it is now.
Crime rate in 1977 is 2x what it is now!
America is remarkably safe, but safe doesn't drive views or click throughs, so it isn't exactly reported on.
So many people consider the 50s,60s,70s idyllic, crime-free decades when children could safely walk across town and everyone knew their neighbors and nobody locked their doors.
In reality, crime today is much lower.
The street I grew up on is now packed with cars. Used to be we could run around with abandon, now days for some reason the off street parking and parking garages are both full, and with the same # of houses, people are now parking on the street, and cars are more frequent.
Rather strange to be honest. :/
In areas with built up density it makes sense of course, more people and all that.
No way would I tolerate it being otherwise.
The value to the child is immense!
Just one example: during a crisis time, or disaster, who do you want as peers?
I will take the free ranged humans any day. They will have some sense of what "do what it takes" actually means, and few enough boundaries so as to stand a chance of applying it successfully.
Almost all the horror stories I hear about hyperactive reports to and, even moreso, actual enforcement action by, child welfare agencies are from the suburbs, but big cities.
Most of my playing outside happened before middle-school, because by grade 7 I had too much homework to play outside a lot.
Nextdoor tends to attract people who worry about anything and everything, and who report anyone they don't recognize (or just don't like) as being suspicious.
Social media, including NextDoor, is full of that.
Yes, bad thing happen in real life. But in the hyper media only bad things happen. Don’t let that filter out reality for you.