Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
How to Combat Childhood Obesity

Trick #3: Remind Michelle Obama that urban planning and design also play hugely impacting roles in getting kids outside to move and play.

(I’m on a “How To” kick lately.)

Feb 12, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

The Front Yard Family Room

Mike Lanza, of Playborhood, gives a great overview at the actual steps he took to convert his front yard into a playable, livable space – “a sort of outdoor suburban version of “Cheers,” he says.

It’s the first of a series of posts Lanza has planned to describe the process, and I’m already so impressed. Don’t miss reading it.

Aug 31, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

Water Fountains Across America

An artistic ode to a truly under-appreciated element of urban design.

Aug 15, 2009 :: Tagged under: , :: #

How the Suburbs Have Killed Children's Ability to Roam

John Michlig reflecting on Michael Chabon’s excellent essay from earlier this month about the Wilderness of Childhood:

How many of us can remember that sweet freedom of youth, when a bike was your ticket to independence? A warm summer day, and you just take off. I can still recall the terrific feeling I had at about age 12 when my range had widened to the point where I could get to Wausau News and Hobby and browse racks of paperbacks all by myself. As long as I was home by dinner, my time belonged to me.

Michlig’s right in saying that it’s this ability for children to roam freely that suffers the most from the American middle class’s Great Exodus to the suburbs. In the short time span of just a few generations, children’s freedom and independence in their very own neighborhood has nearly dissipated, as families (bolstered with the comforts of middle class wealth) head away from the city to find a house and lawn with a white picket fence all to their own.

This move toward the suburbs is often undertaken out of a desire to find an environment better suited to raising a family – but ironically, it’s the suburbs themselves that tend to be most detrimental to children and childhood. Urban centers and rural locations have their own problems to be sure, but they’re understated in comparison to the damage the “non-planning” of suburban neighborhoods has on children and their ability to roam. Not only do children lose out on the open air and greenness of the country, but their new suburb environments lack the diversity of the city. Lawn after lawn, white picket fence after white picket fence – the suburb’s nondescript offerings and lack of diversity offer little to children for them to stake out as their own, to take control of a “territory” solely theirs. There’s very little richness they can draw on anymore.

As one suburb-dwelling mother told the Daily Mail: “Over four generations our family is poles apart in terms of affluence. But I’m not sure our lives are any richer.”

Jul 29, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #