I live in an apartment complex overlooking a relatively nice kids playground. Kids are playing there all the time, and most of the time, it really is a very pleasant sound. (But not the pogo sticks, and not the basketballs, grrr.)

But outside the apartment complex, the sidewalks are barren.

I think zoning is responsible for much of this. Are any new neighborhoods built with mixed zoning, where there are small retail districts of a block or two fitting in with residences?

Most neighborhoods are giant clusters of giant homes with a designated mall or strip mall all of which have giant parking lots. The homes are large and all have two or more vehicles parked on the street, many times, giant SUVs or pickups. There is a lot of traffic, and not a whole lot of places to play..

The best places I've lived have been older neighborhoods with smaller homes but with mixed zoning and alleys that encouraged walking and made the streets friendler to people.

When I was a young child, the suburbs were alive with children and adults too. Few people fenced their backyards, and these formed a network through which the neighborhood children moved. Some had hedgerows, but the secret passages through were known to all the kids, and that just added to the fun. And yes, there was riding bikes in the street, hopscotch layouts drawn on driveways, and neighborhood kickball games. Many evenings we barbecued with neighbors, where the women sat in lawn chairs and talked under plastic Japanese lanterns, while the guys took turns flipping the burgers and playing basketball, to be later followed by a rousing game of Uno. For the kids, it was a neighborhood-wide game of hide 'n seek, which was alway more fun after dark.

These days, you can't let othe people's kids walk through your yard -- too much liability. Everybody works long, stressful hours and when you get home, you just want to crash. Or you have to busy yourself taking your kids to all of their pre-appointed rounds and making sure that their every waking minute is scheduled, lest someone accuse you of being a bad parent. Most parents would be horrified at the thought of their children engaging in any kind of game or sport without vulture-like adult supervision. Stranger danger is everywhere!

We have multiple issues here:

1) Too many people think there's a rapist behind every tree, so they won't let their children out alone.

2) The people who aren't afraid of predators everywhere are afraid someone is going to see their kid unattended and call the police. "Good Samaritans" are my biggest fear, not kiddie diddlers.

3) People don't want to deal with the issues kids unattended in public can cause, and they are very eager to bring in the law. I don't blame parents for not wanting to take the risk.

I used to get my mail at a local bar in DC. They'd also take phone messages for me.

His chums, potential or actual, are at piano lessons, soccer practice, with tutors, or on supervised "playdates."

My co-worker was just talking about how over-scheduled his kids are. His wife's "full-time job" during the summer is shuttling them between playdates, kiddie sports, free church/library activities and tutoring. From 8 am til past six every day. Every moment of every day is scheduled. He has a Google calendar devoted to his kids' summer activity schedule.

I wonder if income has anything to do with dead sidewalks. I now live in an area with several low-income apartments. And there are kids running around everywhere. It's nice to walk to my car and see kids hula-hooping.

I wouldn't put the blame on zoning, I look at the small town I grew up in, zoning hasn't changed , frankly almost none of the buildings have changed. More fences were added and there are less pools. There are also less children but not by that much. But the attitude has changed.
For many of the same reasons mentioned, fear of abductors, fear of lawsuits, more scheduled activities. But also for electronic activities. We had bikes and baseballs, kids today have Wii, xbox, skype and cell phones. When I was a kid I don't think I used the phone before I was a teen. If I wanted to talk with Larry or Paul, I head over to their place or to the places we usually were. Calling first was pretty much unheard of. If they weren't home their parents would have a rough idea whee they were.
Kids today, would more likely just call them or text, and never actually visit.

How can this be?
We have been assured, right here on this blog, social media has no downside...

My co-worker was just talking about how over-scheduled his kids are. His wife's "full-time job" during the summer is shuttling them between playdates, kiddie sports, free church/library activities and tutoring. From 8 am til past six every day. Every moment of every day is scheduled. He has a Google calendar devoted to his kids' summer activity schedule.

So who overschedules them?

"We had bikes and baseballs, kids today have Wii, xbox, skype and cell phones. When I was a kid I don't think I used the phone before I was a teen. "

That's true, but the problem started before any of those things existed. I remember reading an article about how neighborhoods in New York were drying up, and expressing many of these same sentiments, in Life magazine in 1971.

So who overschedules them?

Well, his wife is the one driving, but it seemed to me, based on our conversation, that they both feel pressure from the other parents to do this. Or their kids won't get into a good college or whatever.

My friends are *just* starting to have kids, but they're already saying the push is toward "enriching" activities. Like, if your kid isn't constantly doing something "enriching," supervised by you the entire time, you are failing as a parent. I think the pendulum has GOT to swing the other way at some point and parents will find it trendy to go back to the come-home-when-the-street-lights-turn-on model of summer parenting.

My oldest is only 3, but I've been nagged since he turned a year old that I needed to hurry up and enroll him daycare, preschool, etc., and that I'm failing by not adequately socializing him. Geez, it's not like I kept him locked in a closet all day! I was working full time and my mom watched the kids because child care is insanely expensive where I live. We eventually hired a part-time nanny to watch them in our home so they'd have a more consistent environment and attention, plus she was much cheaper than putting several kids in a daycare center.

When I was growing up I did gymnastics and dance that took up the majority of my time outside of school. I don't know if I was overscheduled necessarily, but I liked doing it, it was good for me, and had nothing to do with trying to get into good schools. If I wasn't at practice I was at home reading or playing outside with the kids in the neighborhood. I'd like it to be similar for my kids when they get a little older if it's possible.

I notice kids playing all over my subdevelopment unsupervised all the time. It's usually directly in front of one of the kids' houses when they are younger (5-7 or so) and the kids atound 8 and up I've seen walking or riding their bikes unattended. As far as I know there have been no complaints. Or perhaps the parents have decided it's safe because we have multiple cops and FBI agents living in a small-ish, isolated housing development. There are 14 houses total on my street and two houses are cops, a parole officer, a corrections officer, and a widow of a cop.

"How can this be?
We have been assured, right here on this blog, social media has no downside..."

When I was a growing up this was already an established practice in its infancy. We didn't have social media then.

Sofar I now live in a low-income Hispanic neighborhood and talk to my neighbors all the time and see kids playing outside. I lived in an upper middle-class neighborhood before so this is different for me!

I live in NYC, and while I see tons of kids in my neighborhood, it's rare to see any who don't have a parent or nanny immediately hovering over them (and that includes older kids).

And of course, some of the richer kids aren't here at all during the summer. Three sets of my parent friends have what I consider to be a very odd summer arrangement. They have a summer home a few hours away. Stay-at-home Mommy stays there with the kids all summer, while Daddy stays in the city and works. If work allows, Daddy goes up for a week or two at some point, and maybe gets up for a weekend now and then. But essentially the family is split up for most of the summer.

I find this totally bizarre. Is having more space for the summer really more important for the kids than time with their dad? Wouldn't some weekend outings closer to home (where Dad could come along) do the trick, along with outings in Central Park with their friends, and then a nice vacation with the whole family? Are the kids really having more fun spending all summer playing with Mommy in another state?

I know I'm coming at this from a childfree perspective, but I don't think I'd voluntarily leave my husband for 1/4 of the year just so the kids could have a big backyard.

3) People don't want to deal with the issues kids unattended in public can cause, and they are very eager to bring in the law. I don't blame parents for not wanting to take the risk.

Posted by: MonicaP at August 7, 2014 7:49 AM
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And when those unattended kids become teens, parents, understandably, will want the kids to have an alibi when their friends get into serious trouble with the law (or with their boyfriends/girlfriends), so at THAT age, especially, one can't blame the parents for keeping them in supervised situations.

Of course, teens aren't the ones on sidewalks anyway, I would think - they'd be at the ball courts.

I really like life on a military base. Kids run from house to house all year round. There are swingsets in two yards that my kids use regularly. The only fences are for dogs. I just open my neighbor's gate and go in if my kids want to play with her dog. We only lock our doors at night. Well, sometimes we forget.

I realize it's not easy to find neighborhoods like this elsewhere. Almost all the moms stay home, and I feel people are more trustworthy that elsewhere, but also stay out of things that aren't their business.