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Comment by yongjik | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint: Many American parents spend a large portion of their time simply shuttling their kids between home, school, and other activities, because none are within walking distance and buses are all but absent in most places.

I'm now raising my kids in the Bay Area, and I'm fortunate because the kids' schools are within walking distance, but that's a luxury not enjoyed by most people around here.

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Yes. You may have a few things in walking distance, but I don't believe you can have most things (schools, grocery, public library, gyms, bike ground, soccer ground, tennis court, etc.) in walking distance, you will need other transportations other than legs.

Around here in Europe, the kids ride the city bus along with the adults or hop on a bike/scooter. And in fact, most of the things you listed are within a medium walk or short bike ride from most urban neighborhoods in my city. It's not a particularly big or important city, about 400k, but has extremely human friendly urban planning (hooray communists?)

From where I'm sitting a 15 minute walks gets to two schools, a grocery store, the library, two gyms, a bike path, and a soccer field. The tennis court is 19 minutes away, and the high school would be the furthest, at 40 minutes.

And this is in a smallish town, one advantage of which is that things cannot be that far away in a town that takes an hour to walk across.

Not sure if your comment was confined to the USA or not, but I live in outer suburban London, and I have the schools, small Sainsbury's supermarket, libraries, a small gym, soccer grounds and tennis courts within an easy walk. Larger gym and larger supermarkets are an easy bike ride away. There is nothing at all unusual or remarkable about my particular part of London.

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