It is great to live in a "real neighborhood" in a city, where our children are free to go to their friends' house (1 block away) or the local playground (2 blocks away) by themselves, at the age of 6 and 8. Next year the older one will take public transport to an after-school workshop at the local university.
In this country (Czech Republic) the less paranoid nature of people, and the lower crime, reminds me more of the 1950's and 1960's in the USA (as it has been described to me).