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Originally Posted by the urban politician
A bit of straw man-ing here
I’m just saying that the idea that it’s “good for the kids” can be a bit disingenuous.
Truth is, none of these “urban experiences” described in the above few posts aren’t available to my kids growing up in the suburbs.
The “candy store” experience in particular I find baffling. I don’t know what the hell is going on in suburban Dallas, but we have candy stores in downtown Libertyville. I and my kids have biked to downtown Libertyville numerous times.
Yes, my kids do need to be shepherded around in cars but still, they get out, walk to the park, and get plenty of physical activity. This idea of kids walking to the candy store on Main St is a very quaint idea that most Americans will never experience, but I think people are exaggerating how valuable or important it is as a part of one’s upbringing.
I can take my kids into the city whenever I want to experience urbanity. And pre-Covid, I did it a lot. But it seems that many urbanites (not all) seem to show such a disdain for the suburbs that they will not say the same in reverse. They’d just as soon deprive themselves and their kids of the vast number of experiences their metropolitan area offers because “the suburbs suck” or whatever ideology informs them.
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Sure you can drive them. You can show them a candy store on the internet, and buy candy from Amazon, too. But it is not the same having the ability to independently walk or bike without their parents, every single day.
It's not just a "quaint idea" but something that people do here every day.
Is it valuable or important to their upbringing? All I can tell you is that it was important to me growing up, and it was important for my own kids. Their first years growing up were in the suburbs, but their later years at home were in the city. They became more independent, they became less fearful of cities and people, they needed much much less taxi service from Mom & Dad, and they were very grateful for the experience of living in the city compared to their old home in the suburbs.
My "ideology" is not the driver of my thoughts differentiating city versus suburban living, but my experience is. I always preferred to live close to city amenities, but I lived in the suburbs for almost 20 years to be closer to work. For a short time I was not allowed to drive due to medical issues, and I realized how trapped I felt, how little there was to do, and how little was accessible, without having a car. After that experience I moved to Inner Loop of Houston (traded a longer drive for better daily living), which was much much better even though not yet a "walker's paradise," and later I moved back to Buffalo where I can easily give up my car if I choose to.
You are also lucky that you are living in a town like Libertyville, which at least has a "downtown" associated with it, and looks like a smaller version of our neighborhood business strip. Many, if not most, suburbs in different parts of the country have no such "Main Street" areas. These types of areas did not exist in suburban Houston.