How Japan Built Cities Where You Could Send Your Toddler on an Errand
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Highlights
- Along with neighborhood events like block parties and festivals, that helps build up a dense social network that can help out in a pinch, like in Hajimete episode 7, when the local hardware store owner helps Miro cross the street. In a survey of 14 countries, Japanese parents were the most likely to agree with the idea that neighborhood adults look out for other people’s children.
- The biggest winner of this system might be Mom. When kids need a chaperone, the role falls mainly to Mom, in both the U.S. and Japan. But Japanese kids ages 10 and 11, Waygood found, make just 15 percent of weekday trips with a parent, compared to 65 percent of trips for American kids. A city that frees children also frees their parents.