That seems like a very unrelated issue to someone being an investigated for letting their children do homework on the front lawn

It's a related cultural factor. The more we build our outdoor spaces to accommodate cars over people, the more notable it becomes when there are people in them.

That doesn't really explain the differences though. Car culture and design was as prevalent in the 40s-90's too, which basically defined the ideal of suburban sprawl. However, those spaces were also filled with children, often literally playing sports in the streets.

Parents and elderly at the time had grown up with playing in the street, so they could hardly be bothered by it. Now we have the next generation that has only known cars (oddly enough probably the ones that played in the street).

Yep! I blame the rise of 24 hour news and the need to spread fear mongering in the name of ratings. I think it coincides nicely with the problem.

car dependent development takes away children's independence ->

people are not used to seeing kids outside ->

they freak out when they see an unaccompanied child

Maybe if she’d been doing her homework in the car on the front lawn, it wouldn’t stoke such fears?

Related – this video does a nice job of articulating that argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw

I didn't open it and I knew it was a NotJustBikes video.

I actually hate that channel because it made me aware of how broken the car-centric infrastructure where I live is. I was living I such blissful ignorance, now I can't unsee it!

Depending on your circumstances you may be able to emigrate to the Netherlands.

Western Europe in general. It's not just an NL thing.

Central Europe is also reasonably well in this aspect, also Eastern Europe is much better than USA.

True, but if they're from the US there's the Dutch American Friendship Treaty.

Much of Latin America too, you don't have to be rich and powerful to have public transportation and stores and services evenly distributed throughout the city. It was a very deliberate planning decision made in the US, to have residential-only zones connected by highways to cities with huge parking spaces.

NotJustBikes is very good at articulating the problem with suburban car culture. I knew it was that guy before I even clicked it and many of us have already watched it so unfortunately it's choir preaching on HN. I hope town planners and suburban SUV drivers can also be influenced by his videos.

The problem with a lot of countries is that the car culture has spread to every city due to planning laws and such. You just need one place done right that can grow into something more European.

There are some communities trying to improve this but for the most part the US is a stroad-infested hellscape.

https://nstreetcohousing.org/ (Davis, CA) and https://culdesac.com/ (Tempe, AZ)

are worth a look.

so did something happen in the last 20 years to make roads unsafe? because the issues addressed by this type of legislation are recent.

IMO, yes, but I obviously can't cite sources for this claim.

I think it was a problem that started to feed back on itself once people started spending more time indoors and isolated themselves from their neighbors more.

Stupid, careless, wreckless people obviously existed during the heyday of the American suburbs, but I reckon that far fewer of them came roaring down suburban streets at 60mph since they knew that Nicky, Tony, and Tommy might be outside playing stickball and that Tony's dad, also named Tony, would throw you a neighborhood-sanctioned beating if you were to pull such a stunt... and nobody saw nothin'.

No, instead, you drove carefully until you got to the highway and THEN it was drag racing time.