Italian Gilt Bronze Clock
2 months ago
As a kid, I was raised in urban neighborhoods on Cleveland's westside and close-in suburbs. We walked nearly everywhere and took the bus when it was too far.
As a result, we got to know a variety of people and have a range of experiences. As an adult parent, I (and my wife) raised our kids in the suburbs where they had their own yard, a small circle of friends and we had to drive them everywhere. Despite my wife's and my best efforts, looking at our now-grown children, I believe that their suburban upbringing deprived them of many things, including how to interact with unfamiliar people and out-of-the-ordinary experiences.
Adrian Voce, from the Play England project, said it was unfair to blame parents as they only had their children's well-being at heart.
"Compared to the well-being derived from being out and about and socialising and growing and developing, weighed up against real threats to your child's safety - real or perceived threats - it's a no-brainer for parents," he said.
"They'd rather their child was short of a few friends and over-weight than dead on the road."
We are rearing our children in captivity - their habitat shrinking almost daily.
In 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 metres from her front door. By 1997 it was 280 metres.
Now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep.
"You might get kidnapped or taken by a stranger," says Jojo.
"In the park you might get raped," agrees Holly.
Don't they yearn to go off to the woods, to climb trees and get muddy?
No, they tell me. The woods are scary. Climbing trees is dangerous. Muddy clothes get you in trouble.
In Historic Washington Park
11 AM Registration & Best Costume Contest
Noon Best Singing Contest
1:30 PM Opera Dogs Parade to Main Street
Second Sunday on Main Street Festival (Main St. between 13th & Liberty)
1:45 PM Opera Dogs winners announced from music stage
2-5 PM More canine contests (starting at 2:15pm), live music by Jake Speed, cooking demos with Chef Romy of The Palace, wine tasting, Christian Moerlein Beer Garden, pet-related vendors, unique boutiques and more. The Cincinnati Police Canine Unit will conduct a special demonstration at 3:30pm.
Many of the folks in this room know just where they were when the riot in Los Angeles started and tragedy struck the corner of Florence and Normandy. And most of the ministers here know that those riots didn’t erupt over night; there had been a “quiet riot” building up in Los Angeles and across this country for years.
If you had gone to any street corner in Chicago or Baton Rouge or Hampton — you would have found the same young men and women without hope, without miracles, and without a sense of destiny other than life on the edge — the edge of the law, the edge of the economy, the edge of family structures and communities.
Those “quiet riots” that take place every day are born from the same place as the fires and the destruction and the police decked out in riot gear and the deaths. They happen when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people all across this country look at the way the world is and believe that things are never going to get any better. You tell yourself, my school will always be second rate. You tell yourself, there will never be a good job waiting for me to excel at. You tell yourself, I will never be able to afford a place that I can be proud of and call my home. That despair quietly simmers and makes it impossible to build strong communities and neighborhoods. And then one afternoon a jury says, “Not guilty” — or a hurricane hits New Orleans — and that despair is revealed for the world to see.
Families and Urbanism in Cincinnati