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Extremely common in cities, that's how I grew up in the 90s.

However, the kids I met in college who grew up in rural areas had to be driven everywhere. Looking at their faces when I'd mention taking the bus to a concert as a teen, you'd think I was talking about performing wizardry.

As a city kid I could literally go anywhere I wanted at any time, just walk, hop on my bike, or the bus. My parents left dollar bills in a designated spot for bus fare if we wanted to go somewhere.

There was even "wilderness" in the city I grew up in. I grew up building tree forts of dubious structural integrity and swimming in streams. Without adults being involved, just the neighborhood kids. I loved that there were always neighborhood kids, there was always a playmate around - just walk outside and see who was out and about. This was all elementary school age.

The good part about "neighborhood kids" is you don't get to choose them, they were just whoever lived in your area - so you learn to get along with people you'd otherwise not hang out with.

I live in an urbanized suburb (SFH, but 5 miles from a city core) and kids are out all the time. We have a few helicopter parents that feel the need to monitor their kids constantly, but for the most part, the parks, buses, restaurants, convenience stores, etc are all full of kids/teens. They don't even really cause trouble either. You'd think a group of teenage boys would be assholes, but nope, they just kind of mind their own business.

Once you get to the cookie-cutter subdivisions in the far suburbs, that's when the kids all disappear. Part of it might be helicopter parenting, but I think it's caused mostly by a lack of any outdoor activities. Riding your bike means going to the next subdivision over. Repeat that a half-dozen times and you get to a heavily trafficked road that can be followed for a few miles to a strip mall with a Target. Even all of the nice parks in these places are only accessible via car -- surrounded on all sized by 4-6 lane traffic going 45+MPH.

Where is this, I want to move there!

Cincinnati. The city is old enough that the inner suburbs were established largely before cars became common, so a lot of them are more pedestrian friendly. Granted, the city loses that midwestern economy when you get closer to the center. You either pay out the nose ($1MM+ is not unheard of) for a home close to the city, or you buy a dirt cheap house ($60k- is not unheard of) in a "rough" neighborhood.

Thank you.

It happens in my single-family home and duplex filled neighboorhood in urban Austin TX.

Can you say which neighborhood it is? If you’d rather not, can you recommend some neighborhoods?

I’m considering moving the family to Austin but have mostly been only looking at the new suburb developments in the south- and northwest.

Lovely, if you don't mind can you share the name of the neighborhood, looking at Austin as a potential place to move to.

Not sure why I was downvoted, this was a legitimate question.

>Today that would be an invitation to have your children seized by child protective services.

This is a common refrain, but I've never seen more than one-or-two anecdotal accounts of this happening. Do you have citations or articles that support common CPS intervention in cases like this? In my experience CPS is primarily focused on abuse and malnutrition, and tries everything possible to keep families together.

Parents act like the world outside is scary and dangerous, despite declining crime rates. I think that many younger kids are in dual-income families, and are at after-school care from 3-6 every day. Those that aren't are often in after-school activities, and aren't home, bored with time to burn outside. If the kids are home, they'd rather play Fortnite or Call of Duty with their online friends than build a fort in the riverbed.

You don't see it in the news that much, but you get phone calls because nosy neighbour reports an unattended kid outside. Law in some places say that children have to be supervised until 12, etc.

The phone calls create a chilling effect as parents tell other parents. So if you even want to avoid the helicopter parent trend, society forces you to be their chauffeur.

So no, kids don't get taken away immediately, but the singular phone call is enough to stop it in %99 of cases.

But here are some links (go through the links that the articles give too):

* Started by some new stories: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/03/27/fr...

* The linked article author went through an entire lawsuit about this with BC's CPS: https://5kids1condo.com/we-won-common-sense-prevails-in-bus-...

I bet if you did 10 minutes of google research yourself you could find plenty more.

It's funny you ask; the person who runs the linked submission actually got told in 2017 that they had to keep their kids under constant supervision until they were 10, after an anonymous tip that they were letting their kids ride the bus unsupervised.

They recently lost a legal battle but are continuing to appeal. http://5kids1condo.com/i-took-the-government-to-court-for-ki...

Update on the above case: upon appeal, they won their case, according to http://5kids1condo.com/we-won-common-sense-prevails-in-bus-d...

> To be fair, it makes some sense: cars are one of the biggest killers of kids, and they're a much bigger risk in the suburbs (where most streets are wide and fast) than the city.

On the flip side, I see far more reckless driving in the city than in the burbs. Blowing lights or stop signs or excessive speeding are all more common in the city often directly in front of police. That wouldn't fly in the suburbs, and moreover people sort of expect traffic laws to be followed within reason (people still speed, but it's not normal to go 70 in a 45). Further, I have a strong suspicion that there are more hit-and-runs in the city than the suburbs. In the burbs, streets are wider and the speed limits are higher, but they have push-to-walk buttons and almost everyone stops well before the light turns red.

Nope, data says suburban automobile traffic is more dangerous than urban automobile traffic.

https://injurylawyer.com/pedestrian-accidents/high-rate-of-p...

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-15-mn-58713-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448007/

https://www.collinslaw.com/blog/shocking-report-reveals-subu...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/019443609029503...

None of these links actually contradict his statement "I see far more reckless driving in the city than in the burbs".

It does, however, support the quoted statement that (actual level of recklessness notwithstanding) cities are safer than suburbs in regards to getting hit by cars.

Depends on the city. I live in LA and we have probably the most dangerous streets in the country for pedestrians. We were the only city to see our car on soft body deaths rise after implementing vision zero.

My theory is this is a result of the traffic, ironically. You spend 2 hours out of your day commuting at 12mph at best, so the minute you have 100 yards of asphault ahead of you, many people opt to just whip to 50-60mph on 35mph roads and 25mph residential streets to savor the speed. If you hit someone at that speed, death is practically guaranteed.

The streets in LA are also ridiculously wide with few barriers and obstacles unless you get into the hills. This is a recipe for drivers speeding up, and never bodes well for bicyclists or pedestrians who don't benefit from the wider spacing when they're crossing streets or navigating intersections. In my limited experience, NYC has many narrower streets but is still problematic especially outside of Manhattan, and SF is similar in some parts.