Where do the children play?

I think that something else changed and should be added to the analysis: the number of children. There are less of them so there are less chances to reach a critical mass that lets kids play together every day. When I was little it was common to have between 10 to 30 of us within the fence of our city building. Parents and grandparents were looking at us from the windows but they were probably hearing us scream and play, a sign that all was good, and we were left alone to do what we liked to do. Where do you find 10 kids together now, if not at a school or in another organized context (organized by adults) ?

> Where do you find 10 kids together now

Walk to the park at the corner, have your child shout a few times, they’ll all pop their heads out of the door at the sound of others playing, desperate to do anything other than sit inside with their parents.

Where I grew up, Rural UK, there was a kid my age who lived a mile away. There was noone else for 5 miles. We used to cycle to see each other all of the time, go on adventures. But were always outsiders at school to the kids from areas with more kids, especially those where there was a girl! Another boy moved in once we were older and it transformed our group.

Every other house had older adults in it.

In 1940 you could imagine there would have been many more kids in the local village.

A peer culture needs peers and it's hard to form one when there aren't enough kids around to organically gather and create those little “societies” of play

Yes, my mother walked me to one of those parks sometimes but it was a little pointless when I could play with my friends outside my home or my grandparents' home. The kids at the park were strangers. We played together but we did not create any relationship. It was like playing with the other kids while adults were busy inside the restaurant after a marriage. A fun afternoon but it ends there if you don't meet them regularly.

This working is a function of density. First, imagining a park at the corner is a huge assumption.

Second, if the park isn't within shouting distance of the necessary number of kids, half of the ones within shouting distance are at parent-scheduled activities, and half of the remainder aren't allowed to brave street crossings because of the six-foot-tall hoods and inattentive drivers of passing ChildMurker1050s, no amount of park yelling will be sufficient.

I've noticed the critical mass issue also. If your kids do free range as described, who else is out there to meet?