> An American Suburbia kid could never do any of this without someone calling the police or CPS for child endangerment even if there was a school, shop or a playground within walking distance.
There's a lot of generalizations about suburbs in these discussions.
From my office window here in suburbia, about a block away from a middle school, every day I see hundreds of kids leave on foot. I imagine most go home in the nearby suburbs, although there are plenty of shops within easy walking distance so perhaps some of them stop at those. There's also a large park/playground not far from the school they might go to.
This idea of a suburb being a place that has nothing and you can't walk anywhere is weird to me. I'm sure such suburbs exist somehwere, but I've never seen one.
So school busses aren't a thing in USA? Where I live it is hard to find a home that is more than 5-10 minute walking distance to a school, nobody with kids would want to live further than that from schools. Even stand alone single family houses are within that distance of schools, since they are built close around denser suburban centers. If you live in an apartment you are almost always within 5 minutes walk of a school.
Of course there might be places where you live close to these amenities in USA, but you have to pay premium for them since it isn't the norm. In Europe that is the norm and you expect to get it basically no matter where you live, even in the dirt cheap areas. Only exception is if you choose to live in the woods or something far away from other people, I know some who does that but it is a choice. If you live in a small town with a few thousand people you will still be able to walk to buy groceries and to early school. Later school uses the same buss/train system as adults so kids gets to use that.
Not sure how this relates to my comment? In my suburb area most kids seem walk or bike to school based on the middle school I see from my office window. Hundreds leave walking, some dozens on bikes and only a few dozen cars lined up to pick up kids.
As to school buses, I don't know how it works. It's probably a school-by-school thing. I see some occasionally but not very often.
There's a lot of generalizations about suburbs in these discussions.
From my office window here in suburbia, about a block away from a middle school, every day I see hundreds of kids leave on foot. I imagine most go home in the nearby suburbs, although there are plenty of shops within easy walking distance so perhaps some of them stop at those. There's also a large park/playground not far from the school they might go to.
This idea of a suburb being a place that has nothing and you can't walk anywhere is weird to me. I'm sure such suburbs exist somehwere, but I've never seen one.
(I'm in California.)