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Megan Chase's avatar

I love this post, and posts like it, and am in full agreement both about independence in neighborhoods being essential to child development, and also the fear mongering that has prevented it. HOWEVER, one thing I have not seen addressed in posts in articles, is that while statistics show that crime, etc is actually down, and so from a safety perspective there is not a reason to keep our kids indoors, what about cars/traffic. The number of cars on the road and the way people drive and the number of people looking down at phones while driving is an absolute nightmare where I live (suburban NJ). People will drive 50 plus on my 25 mph street, on the main street people speeding around a car stopped for a person crossing a street is CONSTANT, and you’ll frequently see 5 plus cars go through a light after it has changed. I know I’m not imagining these things. They are real and major issues here. And I don’t know how to reconcile them with wanting my kids to have independence. My oldest is 15 and thinking about him on the road in 2 years, where 90% of people seem to be looking down, is terrifying.

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Peggy Magilen's avatar

Your work so great for us all, your write today describing the neighborhood I and my school friends grew up in, in the '50's.

I'll add that after the '89 earthquake in the CA northern Bay Area, I started a program, before the current CERT, which asked 18 neighbors in a hood to share their phone numbers, places of work, day care contacts for their kids' schools and after schools care, their out-of-state phone numbers to call to inform families of the neighbors' condition after an earthquake or whatever, and ALL neighbors happily complied. I trained 250 neighborhoods in the area, with Captains, and supporting teams filled by the neighbors, they learning what to do in the aftermath of an event. This drew those neighbors even more strongly together, before phone numbers were no longer safe to share with the people Next Door.

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