How Children Lost the Right to Roam

A recent article in the Daily Mail maps a dramatic reduction in a child's area of movement over four generations. Freedom, autonomy, development are not innate traits. A child, like other organisms, requires an environment conducive to development and growth, which deeply shape the experience of time, place, and connection to the world. It is easy to slip into a false nostalgia about past golden ages, but maps like this might clarify the tradeoffs between the kind of education gained from time spent in the woods and time spent in Second Life.