Something I’ve been thinking about is how urban development and childhood agency have been coupled in recent times. I can’t find it now, but there’s the graph of how far different generations have been able to travel and even though our transit has only gotten better, our kids have been more and more trapped?

The question becomes, how do you create urban forms of transport that allow for kids to have freedoms and more access to services?

Is it purely a cultural thing that allows for Japanese children to ride the metro and travel by themselves? What about their culture allows for this?

I think I remember reading something about how in schools, they all have to help one another (serving food and cleaning and whatnot) and this creates a culture of trusting one another and feeling a sense of responsibility when it comes to public spaces. Is this a prerequisite for cultural change? How long would it take to enact something like this? Why aren’t there more cultural norms towards preserving the commons? Does this clash with individualism in the US?