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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

There are always people who blame cars every time this topic comes up, but my life is no more automobile-dependent today than it was growing up as a millennial. I live in the same metro area, on a very similar street, and yet the parents in my neighborhood today generally give their kids a fraction of the freedom I had growing up.

The "cars" angle feels more like a favorite boogeyman around here than an actual explanation for the change.

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>The "cars" angle feels more like a favorite boogeyman around here than an actual explanation for the change.

It is. Especially on the internet, once people find a cause to champion they'll try shoehorn it into everything, regardless of relevance. I'm only surprised someone isn't trying to pin this on a lack of nuclear energy power plants, which is another internet favorite go-to.

There is correlation[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35419097

There is a correlation with urban sprawl and the autonomy of children[1].

Depending on where you live, it's harder young people to get around compared to 40 years ago. Like this HN user's experience in this same thread[2].

By making society car centric we have made it difficult for children to exercise independence even if their parents allowed them to.

In a non metro area your options as a teen to go somewhere are to beg your parents to drive you somewhere or to walk for hours to a bus stop. These barriers and the rise in pedestrian fatalities do not incentivize autonomy.

[1] https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw Why we won't raise our kids in suburbia

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35417776

A city planned for humans is automatically difficult to access with private cars (gotta have narrower pedestrian-only streets, public transport), which are required to get away unseen smoothly in case of legitimate kidnappings. A city planned for humans is dense, walking anywhere alone your kid is seen by a neighboring grandma, the likely existence of whom in any of the hundreds of flats within earshot also acts as a deterrent. In a city optimized for cars, easy access by a car means easy way of transporting a number of large firearms without being seen.

> In a non metro area your options as a teen to go somewhere are to beg your parents to drive you somewhere or to walk for hours to a bus stop.

I had a bike as a kid, and got my driver's license as soon as I turned 16. The bike isn't the fastest option, but it was just fine for getting to school, to friend's houses and to the local Walmart. And once I had a driver's license, I could and did borrow the family car, and many of my peers had a car that was specifically designated for the kids. Being able to drive a car used to be a symbol of independence for us, but today fewer and fewer teens are even getting a driver's license.

Yes, not every family has a car that's available to borrow, but most in suburbia do.

Cars are absolutely one factor but not the only factor.

Both Pedestrian fatalities and injuries are rising.[1] While cars are getting safer for passengers, manufacturers are not required or tested on improving pedestrian safety. You can see this in the rise of % of fatalities from car accidents that are pedestrians (less people dying in car crashes inside cars, more people dying by being hit by cars).

This is despite the numbers improving drastically in the 00s[2].

I don't think cars are the primary driver though; I think it's the 24/7 news cycle and the various iterations of the dangers to children drilled into people's psyches. Random guy at the park? Paedophile. Kid makes up a story? Satanic panic. Kid hides near a weather balloon? National news sensation. You're constantly surrounded by evil and danger and you must do what you can at all costs to protect your child -- that's the message the media pushes. The people who grew up (as I did) with the primary directive of "come home when the streetlights come on" just weren't being exposed to that stuff then but were later on in life.

I also think video games and the sheer amount of media we can consume are also big factors. People just don't want to go outside as much anymore, so outside spaces in newer suburban neighbourhoods tend to be awful. Houses are larger and more tightly packed, so kids have to go to the park. More tightly packed homes with smaller property sizes means more people (and more cars).

There's probably a bunch of other factors I'm not thinking of as well. The short answer to the thread's question is essentially just "things are different."

[1]: (PDF) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

[2]: (PDF) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

I live across the street from a grade school, nobody that goes to this school lives more than 3/4 of a mile from the school. There is one street that might be considered busy but there is a stop light and a crossing guard. Further there are sidewalks all the way and crime for all practical purposes doesn't exist and yet every morning there is a line of giant SUVs dropping kids off at school and picking them up every night. Honestly there's no excuse no to walk but the majority are driven.

Cars are a part of it, along with greater urbanization (I roamed around a lot as a kid, but I lived in smaller towns and cities at those ages), but a much bigger one is simply that Americans became far more paranoid in the 21st century.

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