Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia

i grew up in a car infested city called london london ontario canada but we don't want to raise our kids in an environment like this and we moved to amsterdam instead so why is that one thing you immediately notice when coming to the netherlands is that there are a lot of children around you'll routinely see even young children cycling to school playing with their friends and just hanging out in the city the dutch are famous for having the happiest kids in the world and a big part of that is the fact that they can literally have chocolate sprinkles for breakfast but the other big factor is the level of independence that children have here i got used to seeing children everywhere so it was amazing to see the difference the first time i returned to my hometown in canada i drove around several residential neighborhoods and while i occasionally saw some kids in the park with their parents i never saw any children out on their own and that's really sad i've talked to some parents from suburban canada about why they don't let their children out in their own and they usually say it's because it's too dangerous one person even said somebody could come along with a white van scoop them up and nobody would even notice now that's insane because canada is one of the safest countries in the world and abductions by strangers are exceedingly unlikely so why do people think this well there are various reasons for this cultural change including an increase in fear-mongering media but this is an urban planning channel so we're going to talk about the reasons linked to city design because there are a lot of them in her famous book the death and life of great american cities jane jacobs refers to an effect she calls eyes on the street essentially it means that people feel safer to be in places with many other people like here in this suburb of amsterdam by comparison north american style car dependent suburbia is desolate for people outside of a car it's depressing to walk there and i know because i've done it a lot in the process of filming these videos i'm almost always the only one out walking and i definitely get the feeling that if something happened to me hundreds of people would drive by without even noticing so it shouldn't be too surprising that some parents are uncomfortable having their children walk in an environment like this now there's another safety reason that's a bit more rational canadian and american cities are really dangerous for pedestrians while overall traffic fatalities and developed nations have generally fallen steadily since the 1970s in the us and canada a big part of this was achieved by putting almost everyone inside of a car but while people inside of cars may be safer pedestrian deaths have increased significantly in the past few decades due to an increase in car traffic larger trucks and suvs distracted driving and higher vehicle speeds [Applause] ultimately these unsafe roads lead to a vicious circle parents are more likely to drive their children everywhere because it's not safe due to all the cars but in doing so they're adding one more car to the problem and making it even less safe i'd like to point out that this is a unique problem caused only by cars i mean nobody ever kept their kids from walking to school just because too many people took the tram but also it's impractical for children to go anywhere on their own in a place like this suburbia is car dependent that means it's almost impossible to get anywhere without a car so even if you wanted your child to walk somewhere they simply can't it's either too far or it's not feasible because of a lack of sidewalks when i have discussions with people from my suburban hellscape of a hometown they usually agree that the city is quiet and soul-crushingly boring but they will inevitably say but it's a good place to raise children i completely disagree suburbia may be a good place to shelter toddlers but as soon as a child is more than about six years old being trapped in a mcmansion on the edge of town seriously inhibits their growth and independence they might be able to walk to a friend's house if they're lucky enough to live somewhere with a sidewalk but they're unlikely to be able to walk to school or anywhere else for that matter in the netherlands 60 of children walk or cycle to school compared to 28 in canada mostly those kids who live in the few remaining walkable pre-war neighborhoods that would be illegal to build today due to modern zoning but when i was a kid that number was 58 in canada almost identical to the netherlands today look at these canadian kids walking through their rural school in the 1920s through the snow uphill both ways yeah that never happens anymore this is the bicycle parking lot of a typical middle school in amsterdam and this is the bicycle parking lot of an elementary school it is obvious here that the majority of children arrive on their own bicycles i'm constantly hearing excuses from north americans as to why kids can walk or cycle to school in the netherlands but not in canada and it's usually some nonsense about the weather or the hills do either of these things explain the massive drop in the number of kids walking to school in canada did canada's weather get worse in the past 40 years did the hills get higher no of course not but we did stop building family-friendly housing anywhere that wasn't car dependent meanwhile here in the netherlands it's not just kids and cities who cycle to school it's everywhere bicycle dutch has several videos showing dozens of children cycling long distances to school in suburbs towns and villages and it's more than just school too kids have lots of sports and other activities so in the netherlands it's very common to see children walking or cycling while dressed in football gear not that kind of football or hockey gear not that kind of hockey because they traveled all these activities by themselves in the us and canada you have the stereotype of the suburban soccer mom the mother who spends all of her time shuttling her kids around from school to activities to play dates and back because until a kid is about 16 years old and has their own driver's license they need to be driven around everywhere by their parents and this is considered normal is it any surprise that kids in the us and canada don't get enough exercise i can't blame them for wanting to stay inside playing video games all day when outside looks like this these problems originate in car dependent suburbs but unfortunately decades of suburbanization have changed the overall culture where now many canadians don't believe it's safe for any children to be out on their own so even if you could afford to live in one of the very few remaining walkable neighborhoods you still can't give your children the independence they deserve for example here in amsterdam we started allowing our children to go to the park without us when they were 9 and 6 years old this is totally normal and accepted in the netherlands if we let our children do this in canada we would literally have someone call the police or worse now you might think i'm exaggerating but there are stories about this happening all over the u.s and canada and the one that angered me the most was the story of adrian crook adrian is a father of five children and lives in downtown vancouver canada he has always been a vocal advocate of allowing kids to have their independence and has written about how walkable urban city design makes this easier and more practical as part of this effort adrian and his kids would ride the bus to school every day he did this with them for two years but in 2017 he started letting them do it on their own a short time later he was anonymously reported to the ministry of children and family development the whole story is available on his blog that i'll link to below but in the end the ministry decided that children under the age of 10 could not be unsupervised in or outside of the home for any amount of time and if adrian let any of his children out unsupervised again even to go to the store across the street his children would be taken away from him adrian literally had to spend three years of his life suing the ministry of children and family development just to allow his children to have some independence and if you think that's insane in ontario the province where i'm from children legally cannot be on their own until they're 16 unless quote adequate supervision is provided when i was a kid adequate supervision was say having the phone number of a neighbor but the problem is what constitutes adequate supervision is becoming increasingly strict and arbitrarily applied this article has examples from all over canada where child welfare investigations were started because for example a nine-year-old walked to school on her own or because a mother allowed her children to play in the fenced backyard of their own house while she was watching them from inside now you might say that these visits from police or social workers are just overreactions and it's better to be safe than sorry but these social workers have the power to literally take your children away from you you're crazy if you don't think this has a chilling effect that ultimately limits the independence of children in north america personally i have absolutely no interest in finding out the hard way what the currently accepted definition of adequate supervision may be when it comes to keeping custody of my children unfortunately the solutions to these problems are not easy because they involve changing not just cultural issues but also the fundamental design of north american cities and suburbs traditional mixed-use walkable neighborhoods have a multitude of benefits but walkability is nearly impossible to retrofit on top of car-dependent suburbia and the last few remaining walkable places in the us and canada are in such high demand that they're completely unaffordable to most people of course we're also not building any more walkable places like this in canada because they're illegal to build due to zoning and car centric regulations like minimum parking requirements so what was built a hundred years ago is it we're not getting any more and if you can't afford it too bad there's this insane myth in north america that when you have kids you need a car and you need to live in suburbia when the exact opposite is true what children really need is fewer cars because cars are dangerous especially for children plus news flash kids can't drive but they can walk or cycle though only if it's safe here in the netherlands almost all new neighborhoods are walkable and some of them are even car free unsurprisingly you see kids traveling on their own and playing together in the streets so a few years ago my wife and i had to make a decision what kind of life did we want for us and more importantly for our children the solution seemed pretty clear we moved to the country with the happiest kids in the world i'd like to take this opportunity to thank my supporters on patreon who pay me to remake the classics if you'd like to join them in supporting this channel visit patreon.com not just bikes

Channel: Not Just Bikes

Views: 4,739,689

Keywords: netherlands, urban planning, london ontario, london ontario canada, helicopter parenting, free-range parenting, raising kids in the suburbs, the problem with suburbs, american in holland, american expat in the netherlands, living in the netherlands as an amercian, dutch life, the happiest kids in the world, living in the netherlands as an american, dutch lifestyle, raising kids in the netherlands, dutch culture from foreign perspectives, dutch culture vs american culture

Id: oHlpmxLTxpw

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2022