Extraordinary Observations

Cavan Wilk has a thought-provoking post up at Greater Greater Washington:

Car-dependent places design each area for one single land use. They also seem to design for single life stages, too. A large yard may make sense when a child is just learning to walk. However, what happens when children outgrow the yard and want to interact with their peers and explore the world around them? While it is clearly possible to raise children who become successful adults in car-dependent places, it clearly has its shortcomings for pre-teens and carless teenagers. Why does so much "conventional wisdom" claim that suburbia is inherently a better place to raise children? Suburbia has its advantages, but also more than its fair share of shortcomings.

I'm probably going to get a lot of negative feedback in the comments for this, but I suggest that the myth about suburbia being a better environment for children arose from a combination of suburban marketing and our collective attempt to rationalize the divestment and abandonment of our cities and towns. Amazingly, our society continues to collectively embrace the idea of car-dependent suburbia being best for children while, simultaneously, the baby boomer generation pines for the walkable towns and neighborhoods of their youth.

Wilk's thesis is perfectly valid on paper, I can attest from experience that the nature of many of today's suburbs make it extremely difficult for kids to interact with peers without a parent (or other adult) chauffeur. That aside, a commenter argues that poorly designed neighborhoods is a one-dimensional issue that fails to address the structural problem:

The fact that kids today are stuck in the house and not out exploring the neighborhood is more complex that walkable/car-dependent premise of this piece... I blame it on the culture of fear that has gripped our society. Parents, especially professionals, are scared to death of randomness. The idea that something could happen to junior is unthinkable.

This shift to "fear culture" appears to have occurred at some point between when baby boomers were starting families and today. Urban blight probably bottomed out around the late 80s when cities truly were unpleasant places to be. Given the remarkable turnaround and urban renewal that has taken place in a lot of cities, the question in my mind is whether the fear mindset is a phenomenon that will peak and begin to change direction too?