This honestly just sounds like another indirect shot taken at suburban life. I get it, internet content writers disproportionately live in the big cities, but to quote the Dude, this is just like, your opinion, man.
It doesn't help that the author acknowledges that there are in fact numerous kids' books set in suburbs, he just doesn't like them very much. :D
What you call well established story tropes is not actual content of actual children's books.
Modern children's books often seem to be written as psychotherapy for adults. For instance, one children's book my kid loves is supposed to have as a lesson that being together with friends is the best thing and we should live in community, but most of what my kid has taken from it is that the protagonist penguin has the most fun while doing stuff alone and yelling "I can do it myself!" It's a pleasant enough book but I think the old stories of danger and foxes and rabbits and bears will stick more. They're all about houses on the edge of the forest... does that count as the suburbs?
I personally prefered new stories to my children. When they were small, the traditional ones were too long for their attentention span and my patience. And when they were older, it kind of turned out we find them more fun.
Anyway, we liked Hilda comic the most. You might like it, or definitely did not led to psychotherapy feeling.
And I would say that princes in kids litterature rarely represent goverment. They more of represent someone rich who have it all.
I agree that stories involving houses tend to portray single family homes. I can't think of any that actually portray that house in a suburban setting (the premise of the article). I'm sure they are out there, but none come to mind for me.
Then the question is really, so what if the settings are not suburban? I didn't really see an answer to that in the article, so I guess they were just trying to point out that there may be fewer topics for childhood adventures set in suburban areas.
More generally, I guess I'd question what it means to portray a house as suburban. The author seems to be assuming that anywhere with cool nature stuff in walking distance is rural, and that's not true; my definitively suburban house growing up was within easy walking distance of a pretty well-forested park on one side and a creek on the other.
I don't get this hate at suburbs either, unless it's by 30-somethings that love their city lives but now want kids and are trying to convince everyone that the city is the best place. If you think that, that's fine, plenty want space and open air.
There does seem to be an issue with American suburbs though. Every suburb in the UK I can think of has pavements down the side of every road, has a primary school within walking distance, a secondary school in biking distance, a bus stop within half a mile. Indeed there are specific limits like "distance to supermarket", "distance to postbox", etc which come into the planning process.
We also have a National Planning Policy Framework, which states things like
give priority to pedestrian and cycle movements, and have access to high quality public transport facilities
and
create safe and secure layouts which minimise conflicts between traffic and cyclists or pedestrians, avoiding street clutter and where appropriate establishing home zones
New developments have to provide appropriate public open space in them, the larger the development, the more space, but as a rule of thumb a development of 400 houses will have a large multi use game area (basket ball, 5-a-side soccer, etc), playground, and an acre of two of informal green space, far more than in a city or town centre.
There's nothing wrong with suburbs, just how they are implemented.
Mr. Rogers also transitions between small town America and a (walkable) fantasy kingdom with a street car connecting the two. Again ... probably doesn't mean anything.
They float and swim around like fish yet somehow they have scenes that will involve something like gathering around the ol' underwater campfire or they'll be "at the beach" and you see their air bubbles floating up, yet you also see waves lapping up on the sand or them build a sandcastle. Or the episode featuring the town fire department and they teach fire safety. They also had an episode where they adopted a puppy. Not a mer-puppy, just a regular dog that would drown shown next to the clearly-just-a-fish teacher Mr. Grouper. Or the episode about _air_planes. Nevermind that the show is clearly tries for an ocean theme most of the time and guppies are a freshwater fish.
I'm glad my kids are aging out of this nonsense. At least Mr. Rogers spoke to kids like real people with emotions and intelligence instead of just assuming they're too stupid to recognize massive internal-inconsistencies.
The show is pretty educational - kids learn about sharing, professions, sing songs about the universe, go on crazy adventures, etc. Mr. Rogers was great in a time when the word was much slower, but now a kids show in 2020 needs lots of pizazz to keep a child's attention.
(I can't believe I'm debating Bubble Guppies on HN)
I'm sure the parent poster is familiar with it, but figured I'd throw out a good word for any current or future HN parents of young children who might be on the lookout for something better than the average drivel the passes for children's TV.
Look at Calvin and Hobbes for a good example of a great deal of memorable stuff happening in a clearly suburban setting. A lot of primary/secondary school geared books, especially those geared towards girls, are set in suburban neighborhoods and schools.
Outside of American culture, you can see a lot of suburban themed stories. For example, many school-themed mangas happen in suburbs.
The Brazilian comic Monica's gang is another good example of stories happening primarily with kids hanging around a suburban neighborhood.
How come kids are totally disinterested in cars? Oh wait, they're not disinterested in cars. There's a popular series of movies called Cars, and kids' toys include endless variations of cars like remote controlled cars and collections of miniature cars. When playing, kids will happily make vroom vroom noises and simulate car jumps and stunts and crashes, but I have never seen children's play involving the scenario of walking to a restaurant instead of driving there.
On a more practical and aesthetic level, drawing cobblestone streets, cozy neighborhood stores, hand carved sandstone facade apartment buildings, etc is a lot more glamourous than drawing tract suburban housing, so I can see the appeal of it aesthetically. Also from what I've read about some of these authors, they were city people as well, so they just drew what they knew. The migration of the middle class to the suburbs didn't happen until many of these authors were well retired, so if kids are reading the more classic books, they'll see a bit more city life than usual and almost exclusively NYC where so many budding creatives had access to NYC's incredible publishing industry.
Lastly, kids can't drive. So if you want a kid having an adventure where he meets various storekeeps, neighbors out running errands, friends, pet stores, schools, etc then a walkable city makes the most sense. Walkable areas are just more communal and neighborly than suburban life as well. Its more realistic if a kid goes on an adventure in a city than in the suburbs were the only practical way around is being driven around. Bikes, less so, when the nearest store is 5+ miles away and there's no bike lanes. I also imagine parents are more comfortable with books not encouraging little kids to ride bikes in the street. As a parent, my recollection is that a lot of the books exist in a weird nebulous middle ground unless they outright take place in NYC or London or Paris for narrative reasons. Kids can walk through a urban downtown area with stores and neighbors but also end up in big suburban houses on big suburban streets in the same book and without taking a bus or a cab between either. So its probably hard to really divide this into city vs suburban if we want to be fair about it. Authors will do whatever fits their narrative. The walkable city is appealing but so is the big home, so why not have both?
As a kids who grew up in a few different suburbs in 2 different countries, I'd challenge that assertion. We had tons of adventures, visited a lot of cool places, and did a lot of exploring (on our own), all within a few miles of our homes. We'd ride out bikes to the liquor store / arcade / cemetery / 7-11 / park / community center / museum etc. When younger, we'd have to get off and push out bikes back up the hill the last few blocks sometimes (I lived on a very steep hillside).
Nothing about living in the 'burbs precludes adventure...
I did still have one but we rarely used it. There wasn’t anyone to see for miles.