2026-09-21 12:37 UTC
Replies (25)
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@mdione@en.osm.town 2026-09-21 13:33
@markstos@urbanists.social not only "over generations" but "in only 4 generations".
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@only_ohm@mas.to 2026-09-21 17:07
@markstos@urbanists.social Trying to cast my mind back to being 8 years old, and I don't recall actually being *disallowed* to walk anywhere, but I cannot imagine having had either the time or the inclination, at 8 years old, to go for a 6-mile walk.
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@Mab_813@fedi.at 2026-09-21 17:11
@markstos@urbanists.social The other side of that "right to roam" coin is that my grandfathers (in Austria) also "had to roam". If they wanted to go somewhere they had to walk. Public transport didn't exist where they lived. No way they would have been able to afford a car.
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@marinheiro@ciberlandia.pt 2026-09-21 17:13
@markstos@urbanists.social At 8 in 1962 normally walked 1/2 mile to school on my own, or anywhere else similar distance eg playground (basically within village)
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@glent@aus.social 2026-09-21 17:13
@markstos@urbanists.social If you suggest a 8yo can walk to the train station and catch a train people get horrified. The biggest thing which makes that unsafe: the car. When my 16yo travelled I had to do paperwork for airlines and youth hostels(!).
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@pthane@toot.wales 2026-09-21 17:32
@markstos@urbanists.social 'Allowed to?' I was compelled. My county provided school transport for children under 8 who lived more than 2 miles from school. I got a bike for my 8th birthday in 1960 - to ride to school.
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@sanityinc@hachyderm.io 2026-09-21 17:39
@markstos@urbanists.social My dad, aged 10 in 1956, was allowed to take day trips on the train to a city 100 miles away with a schoolfriend. They did not know anyone in that city, btw. His dad's work gave the family cheap train travel, so this let him explore on a dull Saturday.
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@happyborg@fosstodon.org 2026-09-21 17:46
@markstos@urbanists.social Late sixties I had no restrictions other than my legs. Also, building sites (and we always had one within range) were great playgrounds and I never heard of an injury on them. We explored the cellar in a closed up derelict house (scarey :rofl:), obviously went pond/stream dipping etc. This was in a village w several modern estates and 2 miles of busy road to school I walked home from daily. Only one later in my old primary school playground 'aparatus' which caused the boy's death.
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@newstik@social.heise.de 2026-09-21 18:09
@markstos@urbanists.social In Vienna, in primary school, I had a ticket for the entire public transit network, the whole city. Also I had a bicycle to roam freely in my spare time, I went several kilometres regularly. During school holidays, the city had scheduled programming all around the city for kids, and I went, all over town. It's a big city, but with the underground it's easy to go places.
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@patrickleavy@mastodon.social 2026-09-21 18:09
@markstos@urbanists.social and the real danger is in their pocket, in their phone. Instant access to predators 🤦♂️ We try and help parents with all that in our parents tech guide: https://www.rebeltechalliance.org/parents.html Please share with your friends - we have zero marketing budget.
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@gooba42@mastodon.social 2026-09-21 18:52
@markstos@urbanists.social We've been actively making it more dangerous with all the cars. We have a really poor grasp of what's actually dangerous.
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@number6@fosstodon.org 2026-09-21 19:29
@markstos@urbanists.social I wonder how far you can walk now, as compared to the past, before you come up against fenced private land or a housing development.
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@LordCaramac@discordian.social 2026-09-21 19:29
@markstos@urbanists.social When I was a child in 1980s West Germany, I never _walked_ any further than a few hundred metres. With my bicycle, I could go a few kilometres in any direction before hitting a steep hill. So I mostly asked my parents to drive me if I wanted to cross those hills.
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@shibao@shitposter.world 2026-09-21 20:29
@markstos@urbanists.social yeah maybe it's because they made it illegal or something due to child endangerment. if only we could change laws
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@tompearce49@mastodon.scot 2026-09-21 20:47
@markstos@urbanists.social Brought up in Sheffield in the fifties, this fits with my perception. Except that my parents were sufficiently cavalier about our safety that primary school was on the other side of the city and a bus+tram (8 mile) journey away. Mind you, in my early teens, they arranged for a cousin to leave me in Hamburg on a hitch-hiking trip to make my own way home. Via Oslo. Someone once asked "Did you not realise that they didn't want you?" I didn't!
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@akamran@indieweb.social 2026-09-21 21:15
@markstos@urbanists.social @epiceneVivant@mas.to I wonder how much of that is cars, how much is tightened parental reins, and how much is just a function of how many people there were in the area at that time? When I was growing up, the area where I live had about half as many people, and I was allowed to go as far as I could and still get myself back (about 1 mile on foot, 5 miles on bike).
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@traigott@swiss.social 2026-09-22 07:36
@markstos@urbanists.social Yeah Thank you car, for ban the childrens in their hood.
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@sortius@beige.party 2026-09-22 08:01
@markstos@urbanists.social one mention of cars. One.
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@markhburton@mstdn.social 2026-09-22 08:04
@markstos@urbanists.social This accords with experience in my family However my 14 year old grandson does cycle with friends for a few miles to play sports and that's in suburban Manchester. I used to roam the countryside in Worcestershire at 8 years, with friends. I think the cause of the decline is cars. Both danger and reliance.
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@david@social.piconet.work 2026-09-22 08:16
@markstos@urbanists.social I wasn’t allowed out of the sight of our house until I was about 14 in the 90s. It was a built-up area, but there was also a huge park behind our house, and you didn’t need to cross a road to reach it, and I couldn’t go. My parents trusted me, just not me accidentally injuring myself or “strangers”. I was kept safe, but honestly I think it contributed to anxiety.
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@brunogirin@mastodon.me.uk 2026-09-22 08:25
@markstos@urbanists.social related to @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk 's post about offline (not) being safer than online.
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@small_cypress@indieweb.social 2026-09-25 09:49
@markstos@urbanists.social meanwhile, I live in a US city where there are almost no school buses. Kids walk up to half a mile to school in elementary school or they take the regular city bus (for free). I have 5th graders holding hands with pre-schoolers on the other side of the city navigating the bus and its stops and changes all the way to school and back. Most of them can do it! (attendance would be better with real buses though)
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@Mab_813@fedi.at 2026-09-22 09:41
@technothrasher@universeodon.com Why do they look horrified? Asking as someone who has never been to New York.
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@gbargoud@masto.nyc 2026-09-22 10:49
@technothrasher@universeodon.com @Mab_813@fedi.at You can tell those horrified dipshits that kids here take the subway alone to go to middle school and no one bats an eye.
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@small_cypress@indieweb.social 2026-09-25 09:45
@Virginicus@universeodon.com @markstos@urbanists.social though he was only three! (my whole family knows the poem by heart)