Originally Posted by
somedood
Around here there was
a story last year about a parent that was cited for neglect because she had her child walk to school. It seems weird that either walking could ever be considered negligence, or that the city would be designed to not be safe for pedestrians. From what i understand about where you live it is pretty bike friendly though, so I doubt something like this would happen.
No doubt there are people who would frown on us for letting our kids walk so far. We also had our own share of concerns when our son started to do it. It's one of those things that you would never forgive yourself for if something were to happen.
There's this building that I walk through once in a while when I grab some lunch. It was built at the turn of the (last) century and it has some blown-up pictures on the walls from the early 1900s. One of the pictures that fascinates me is of a parade in 1911 or so. There are two remarkable things. The first is that everyone watching the parade is dressed up. The second is that there are tons of people sitting on narrow ledges and hanging out of windows 6 and 7 stories high. There's no way any building would allow that today. We seem so much more concerned about safety now. Are we too concerned or were they just not concerned enough?