Despite the grumbling the snow covered roads have served as a reminder of how things used to be. This week many residential streets have been recaptured as a social space. With cars taken off the roads people have been socialising with their neighbours and children have been playing freely outdoors. I’ve spoken with neighbours I’ve never met before as they’ve been forced out of their 4×4s and walked instead.
By getting to know their neighbours better parents are typically a lot happier letting their children play in the streets. As well as being less fearful of traffic, parents tend to be less concerned about ’stranger danger’ when they feel neighbours are keeping an eye on the street.
Research shows that the greater the levels of traffic the lower the level of social interaction. When streets are dominated by cars people tend to sense danger and retreat indoors. Rather than allowing children to play outside parents feel happier if they are ’safe’ indoors playing with an Xbox. This trend coincides with rising levels of childhood obesity – a trend which is now classed as an epidemic.
When the snowmen have melted minds will be turned to the lessons to be learned from low grit levels and the strain on the National Grid. But perhaps there are other lessons to learn from the snow too.
David Walters 4:47 pm on 10 January, 2010 Permalink
Perhaps we can go back to the good old days when you used to able to leave your door open no matter what, chicken used to taste like chicken and you could go out on a Friday night, catch a bus to town, go to the pictures with sweets, come out have a bag of chips and catch a bus home and still have change out of tuppence!
Lee Waters 7:27 pm on 10 January, 2010 Permalink
There is nothing inevitable about us living atomised lives, commuting long distances from dormitory towns where small shops are rare as we all drive to out of town shops. There is a connection between all these things and our sedintary lifestyles. It didn’t exist 30 years ago, and so if there’s a will it can be changed. Not all change is progress. There’s nothing nostalgic about my view. If we are to tackle obesity, reduce emissions and respond to high fuel costs we need to address the trend.
Ty 7:29 pm on 10 January, 2010 Permalink
Now such a phenomenon has been identified, we should spend our efforts planning for and supporting the re-introduction of these community ideals. Surely, we shouldn’t be focussing upon the shortcomings but celebrate and develop the successful elements within communities. After all it has always proved tricky to build a house upon sand, but snow, perhaps that’s a different foundation altogether.
victoria 9:28 pm on 10 January, 2010 Permalink
Also a reminder of what it is like to be cold in your house, be worried about paying bills, and too afraid to step outside because of ice. Ah yes, the good old days.
Rhetoric Inn 8:32 pm on 14 January, 2010 Permalink
Yes, good post. People are actually thinking about walking to the shop rather than polluting the place with their internal combustion engines!
A couple who i thought would never dream of being seen actually ‘walking’ were doing this and enjoying it.