I grew up in a city (SF) and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was awesome, made all the more so by the fact that my parents trusted me to be responsible, so I had loads and loads of freedom. I admit, though, it could be scary at times when I was younger. I have a bunch of scary experiences I could tell… oh, like the guy down the street handcuffing me to his railing when I was 9 because my friend and I were throwing those snappy popper things down on the ground in front of his house, or being chased down the block by a raving lunatic homeless guy, or being harassed heading back to my friend’s house in a very sketchy neighborhood. When I was 8 or 9, there was a very famous kidnapping of a young boy not that much older than me, which happened at a bus stop on a busy street about 4 blocks from our house.
So, obviously, some real fears here, which I imagine is ridiculously scary to over-protective parents. There is something to be said about being a kid in a safe place, getting to run around, to play outside, having yards to play in, a tighter sense of community where neighbors are more likely to keep an eye on what the kids are doing. I imagine that kind of freedom could be really fun, as well as being a great kind of childhood.
My sister lives in a village of about 1500 people and I’ve always said that even though it’s super boring and I could never live there, what an amazing place for kids to grow up! It’s super safe, everyone in the village knows each kid and who they belong to, everyone keeps an eye out and if the kid is being bad, it gets back to the parents. The kids in summer time run around and play until midnight, with little to no adult supervision. It took a while for me to get used to, but it’s pretty awesome if you think about it.