Five years ago, a retired police officer spotted a 7-year-old girl walking alone in her New Jersey neighborhood. The stranger stopped her, questioned her about where she lived and whether she was alone, then called the police. When officers arrived, the girl gave them her address which was just a few blocks away. They walked her home and met her parents.
But instead of leaving, the officer demanded ID. When the parents refused, arguing they’d done nothing wrong by letting their daughter go for a walk in the neighborhood, the officer called for backup and threatened to take their daughter into protective custody. The father tried to comfort his crying daughter. Police wrestled him to the ground, arrested him for obstructing justice, and took him to jail in handcuffs. He was later found guilty and fined $133.
We Americans talk big about freedom, but when a child is learning to be independent, the cultural reaction today is to think something is terribly wrong.
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Way back in the olden days, if a stranger walked up to a child asking questions like “Where do you live?” and “Are you alone?” the stranger was considered suspicious. Countless PSAs were made about this stuff. But now, a stranger asks those questions, follows the child home, gets the child’s dad arrested, and is considered a hero.
Freedom to move
What does this have to do with urbanism? Well, it seems pointless to design streets for all ages if all ages aren’t allowed to freely move around.
In the 80s, when my sister and I got home from school, we’d have a snack, change clothes, and go play. If it wasn’t pouring rain, a significant amount of playtime was outside—not because we felt some bond to nature, but because that’s just what you did. Also, mom was teaching piano lessons in the living room, so being loud in the house wasn’t an option.
We lived in a suburban neighborhood developed in the 1960s and 70s. Everything was within a 10-minute bike ride: playgrounds, soccer fields, the pool, the library, everybody else’s house, and the woods. (The woods is what we called any bigger-than-your-yard area of trees—it had creeks, “secret” passageways to other streets, mysterious remains of tree forts, and places to hang out away from grown-ups.)
By 3:30pm on any given weekday, we (and kids across America) were knocking on doors asking: “Can you come out and play?” or “You wanna ride bikes?”
We’d shoot hoops until our arms got tired. We’d use saws, hammers, ropes, chains, and other found tools to make stuff. A few of us once made what in hindsight I’d call a cargo bike train. Multiple injuries followed.
Walking everywhere
My point about these neighborhood adventures isn’t that we became one with nature or longed for healthy exercise. The big difference between then and now is the getting from here to there. We were walking or biking everywhere. Parents were either at work or home doing parent things. No kid in their right mind was asking for a ride to the playground. You got yourself there.
If you didn’t have a similar childhood, I’m sure someone close to you did. We Gen Xers love sharing the glory days of when we could be left to our own devices. I think one reason my generation is so nostalgic is that our ordinary youth seems otherworldly by today’s standards.
Good urbanism isn’t any good if you’re not allowed to walk or bike. Besides the infrastructure itself, neighbors and cops now interfere with healthy childhood development. There’s a case to be made that a safe place to grow up allows for risky childhood behavior. I use “risk” loosely because expectations for child development have changed dramatically in our culture.
Childhood independence
Town councilman Keith Kaplan witnessed the New Jersey incident and was outraged. He drafted a Reasonable Childhood Independence bill stating that letting kids walk or play outside isn’t negligence unless they’re in obvious, serious, and likely danger. The bill passed and became law in 2025, making the New Jersey town a place where kids can be kids and parents can breathe a little easier.
That bonkers story about the police investigating an independent child isn’t an outlier. So many parents are threatened with legal action that groups like Let Grow have been established to help restore freedom of mobility for people of all ages.
Town planners and urbanists talk about designing streets and public spaces to work for everyone, from children to elderly people, from wheelchair users to marathon runners. The idea is that if your infrastructure isn’t safe and comfortable for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old, it’s not good design. But that’s a futile exercise if the cultural norm is to be suspicious of independent children.
Personal stories are powerful tools to help convert policy jargon into infrastructure practice. It’s important to talk and write about your own experiences and what you’re hearing from others. Watch for stories that might have a headline about parenting or education but have deeper roots in land use or transportation policy.
Walk-friendly, bike-friendly neighborhoods are incredibly important for human flourishing. But they’re also only as good as the local authorities allow them to be. Legalize good urbanism and legalize healthy childhood development.
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