Interesting. To provide a different experience, I live in NYC with kids and I find it great here. Daycare/Kindergarten is at most 4 blocks away, grocery stores are less than a block away, it takes me 10 minutes to get to the office on the train (1/2/3). I still bike to the office often. If we need a car there is a rental less than a block away, but in practice we rent maybe once a year. Today there was an open street on Columbus Ave and it was lovely to meet co-workers with their kids and let them play there. To be fair, I wasn't born here even if I'm a citizen, so I guess I wouldn't be considered "American".
I wasn't born here either (but I am the person you are replying to)
I'll give you some examples of the kinds of things I easily did with my two bigger kids (5 and 3 years old)
- woke up on a nice Sunday morning and decided to go for a woodsy hike 20 min drive away.
- threw our kayak on the roof and drove out to paddle it on the south shore, on a whim.
- threw bikes into the bike rack for a long ride along a Greenway.
- dropped by Grandma's house easily.
- went to the Adirondacks for a week and brought our bikes and paddle board along with a bunch of other stuff.
And not directly care related but car enabled - I just opened the backyard door and they were playing there by themselves while I kept an eye from the kitchen.
Nice. Those activities remind me when I used to visit my dad countryside (he lived in Tuscany). He's legally blind though, and we managed anyway. Not sure why the last bit would be car enabled. I was in East Hamptons a few weeks ago and the kids would play outside while we stayed in the living room/kitchen. We just had to be careful about the pool.
I think you and I can both recognize that the east Hamptons are a car oriented place even if you got there from the city on the jitney.
The point I was making w that one is - lower density is what allows us a back yard while higher density is what supports walk-ability and transit. So maybe I can make the point in a cheekier way - your Hamptons weekend is closer to my every-day life than to your city life :)
