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I've heard of a few such towns that haven't changed much over the years. I'd like to discover more.
Two things.
1) kids don't play outside all that much anymore compared to past generations.
2) The economies of small towns in many parts of the country have been ravaged. Small towns used to have a farm economy, many of them had small factories, and they had main street businesses that provided goods and services for the community. All that has gone the way of the Buffalo.
Yeah, you'll be hard pressed to find these towns any more.
Kids today are on their iphones, ipads or video game systems in their free time, or get shuffled around from house to house for "play dates" with neighbor or school kids.
Those that do play outside a lot either have to due to lack of family finances to afford the electronics to play on, or are given rules by their parents that they cannot be on those systems often.
It really will depend based on those factors. So geographically, it's hard to say.
I'd start with small rust belt towns in upstate NY, PA, OH, MI, IN, IL, etc.
I grew up in one of these small towns (population 23,000, but nothing else around for miles), and in the 90s-early 00's it was like this. We all had video games and stuff, but we ran around in the woods playing paintball, played street hockey and whiffle ball, and rode bikes all over the place.
The towns are perfectly safe, and for the most part, so are the big cities. But there won't be any other kids out there for them to play with.
I walk everywhere. Recently, I spent a whole summer vacation, watching to see if any kids were out. Residential streets and parks. Late in the summer, two boys about 12, toting a grocery bag towards home. Their mom had pried theit phone out of their hands long enough to send them on an errand. That was it, for three months. Our towns are deserted.
At my apartment building, letting kids play outdoors without adult supervision was considered a lease violation.
I live in Seattle proper in an old streetcar suburbanish neighborhood and our kids play with the neighborhood kids all the time. It's a walkable neighborhood with sidewalks, small shops and parks nearby. Pretty safe. Safe enough that I don't need to walk my kids to their buddies' houses.
Don't think you need to necessarily be in an isolated small town, and IMO driving through those small towns I rarely see children out.
I live in Seattle proper in an old streetcar suburbanish neighborhood and our kids play with the neighborhood kids all the time. It's a walkable neighborhood with sidewalks, small shops and parks nearby. Pretty safe. Safe enough that I don't need to walk my kids to their buddies' houses.
Don't think you need to necessarily be in an isolated small town, and IMO driving through those small towns I rarely see children out.
Those neighborhoods are really expensive for the vast majority of Americans.
A majority of Small towns are probably some of the worst places for kids these days. I don’t know why so many people still indulge in myths regarding child-rearing in the “big-bad city”. Most small towns these days are dying, and lack activities for children, and even if the town is safe enough for them to go outside, there’s hardly any kids left to play with in plenty of these places. Also, depending on the town, expect your kid to be commuting 50 minutes plus to school and 50 minutes plus back because of consolidation.
And besides, what does “safe enough to play outside on their own” even mean? Sorry, the people most likely to harm or even kill a kid is their parents or close friends/family, not some drug addict, not some sicko, not some gangster.
That being said, while I’m being pretty negative, a lot of small towns aren’t necessarily hostile to children/young families, but it’s more the lack of activities, social groups, places for outings, etc cause these places to be very boring and that is more likely to cause them to stay inside, and play games or whatever, not perceived stranger-danger. I wouldn’t be surprised if more kids hang out indoors in small towns compared to larger cities based on those factors alone.
Also, frankly, not as many people are having kids these days and if they are, they are a lot more likely to keep it to 1-3 kids, not 4 or 5 or 6, which was a lot more common back in the 70s, 80s, 90s… Having kids simply isn’t that desirable to a lot of people anymore because of the intense financial stresses of having children and the stresses of what it has on relationships. And maybe these things were always true in a way but people are a lot more knowledgeable of the drawbacks to having children these days, and that’s a good thing.
Just saying, theres a lot of complexities when it comes to whether or not deciding somewhere is safe/nice for raising a family.
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