That last bit is apropos/funny as a friend just found a gun and a bag of weed at a park here in our own little Kalamazoo. An abberration, of course, for this little valley, although I once also found what appeared to be an entire copy of the New Testament torn page by page at this very same park. A story there, for sure.
Turn left, dear boy, turn left! Just take an evidence bag along for good measure.
ausgezeichnet, dutch! very well said.
It has been a long time since I did as Debord describes, just going and being in a place, letting the experience take me wherever, to do whatever. I think the last time was in New Orleans, another very..."interesting" city in that way. Sounds like something I need to schedule to do! 
I agree about Chicago. I didn't care for the "magnificent mile" (aka long outdoor shopping mall full of expensive chain stores) but I loved the hole-in-the-wall dives there, like Heaven on Seven (a cajun restaurant on the 7th floor of some building, which I can't remember).
It scares me SHITLESS to think of what kind of trouble my Hootie could get into in the future, very haplessly. I know my parents didn't really worry about that, because it was still relatively safe to just bum around on my own as a kid.
It's much safer now to bum around then when we were kids, probably safer 'cause that kid who always kicks you in the nuts is now not allowed out of his house, by his overly protective mom.
The media's just better at selling you danger now. If you don't believe me just look at crime statistics (especially from the 70s when I was born). We are ridiculously safe.
man, I hated that kid.
I go through phases of threatening to move back to Chicago (I lived there for one glorious summer). Hearing Chris Ware and Timothy Samuelson give a talk back in December about Chicago architecture in the context of comic history drove that cold icicle of an idea even further into my heart. And now you come along with your dirty Italian beef stands and glass bricks... What are you people doing to me?
Plus, I can't get over the fact that 300 yards of a child's roaming freedom in New York would translate to about 900 Chicago yards.
Point me to the real estate section of the Tribune...
("Tomorrow I'm going to turn left where I usually walk right." - Amen.)
I can't believe I missed you guys in Chicago.
I didn't see you ONCE. Where was I?
we didn't register or anything, we just showed up for the friday evening cocktail party.
I wander around towns and cities all the time, but the best object I ever found was a swiss army knife in Upper Senate Park. I want my gun and drugs!
You were about three miles East of us when you were in Uptown. We live just between Lawrence and Foster avenues. Alas, we were in Disneyworld as BlogHer pulled all our favorite, virtual people so close to our house. I suppose I could have given you a free place to stay while you were here.
I've never been to Navy Pier. But like you said, my entire life is within a two-mile radius even though I live in a gigantic city.
Para. 1, sentences 4 & 5 = utter effing GENIUS. Love, love, love it!
Tim - seriously? We're safer than the 70's? Maybe it is the media and what they choose to "play up," but I don't remember things like shootings in schools, or prolific drugs, or street gangs in junior high school, or the massive amount of kidnappings/rape/murders of kids from when I grew up in the 70's and 80's. What's your data source? (not that I am seriously questioning you, I have no data source other than my abstract consciousness and what I've been exposed to over the last 20 years)
Thanks for that article by Chombart de Lauwe. As a former resident of Paris during my student years, I had come to similar conclusions and remarked that Paris really felt like a small town to me, because not a day went by when I didn't run into people I knew on the streets or on the metro. And most of the people around me were people that I had at least seen before, if not known. It occurred to me that we tend to move in very small social circles and while there may be millions of people who live and work in Paris, you're only likely to ever socialize with a very small percentage of those who are more or less in your same socio-economic group. But as a foreigner there, I was more adventurous and willing to explore than my native Parisian girlfriend (now wife) who, much like that girl in the example, only had a very small triangle of familiar places that she frequented. It always struck me that I knew Paris far better than she did.
if edan gets up to half the shit i did, i'll be petrified. that said, i didn't die, so she'll probably be fine.
now that i've written that down, i'll be forced to remember it in 10 or 15 years when she's off in some big city and i'm shitting myself.
i love that same kind of stuff in chitown. i found more wonderful things just a block inland of michigan than i've ever seen on the mm. serendipity should be a mandate for any trip.
my oldest two, now in philly for study, sometimes make my heart hurt with these ame kind of worries.
blessings, chris
I wonder if we are safer now as well or if things are pretty much the same. When I was a kid, growing up in a suburb of New Orleans, there were street gangs, a shooting or two on school grounds (one at a football game,) and I recall several child murders. This was all in my suburb which had a mixture of neighborhoods, some quite affluent. I'll never forget seeing a drug deal in the bathroom at my junior high. So maybe things seem worse, but aren't worse. For sure, I doubt the shooting at the football game and murders made national news. Today we have several 24-hour news services looking for stories. Back when I was a kid there was just local news, the big 3, and the MacNeil/Lehrer report. This all could be a matter of perception. Even so, I can't ever see opening the front door and letting my daughter roam the streets at her leisure until she is much older.
Visiting new places in the manner you describe makes me think that you may also be acting the part of the flâneur (made famous by Baudelaire and subsequently Walter Benjamin)
The flâneur strolls through a place and finds pleasure in the faces, places and objects he experiences. He is also free to focus on things that are unnoticed or quotidian to others.
Sorry, I guess I am just an ex-pubescent petite bourgeousie.
Well, it's interesting to look at statistics. You have to take them with a grain of salt since some things while appearing to have gotten worse (rape, child molestation, etc), are hard to compare. They've had massive campaigns to get victims to actually come out and report the crimes. So, if you look at crime staticts you'll notice that rape went off the charts during the seventies and has been on an upward trend since then.
This one has the info about juvenile kidnapping:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ibrs.htm
Excerpt:
# Kidnapping composes less than 2 percent of all violent crimes against juveniles reported to police.
# 49 percent of juvenile kidnappings are perpetrated by family members, 27 percent by an acquaintance and 24 percent by a stranger.
So while it gets a lot of play in the media, it's ridiculously unlikely to happen to your child (well slightly more likely if you have nutty family members)
This site's also interesting:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/
I couldn't find anything particularly useful on kidnappings. But it's still interesting to note that your risk of being murdered has gone down since 1960.
All in all we still are pretty comfortable with driving our kids around in a car which is the most likely way they'll accidentally die.
Fear is a fascinating thing.
Again, great post.
The small triangle is what I love about living in my city. I walk everywhere I need to go, I know the shop keepers and they know me (if not by name, then at least by face), and neighbours smile and say hello to each other on the street. Whenever my mom comes to visit, she always remarks that our neighbourhood is like some 1950s small town. It feels like Sesame Street. Yes, I venture outside my triangle, but not a lot. I'm sure going to miss this place when we move.
True, about the triangulation. Hell, I didn't even know about the big amazing playground on Belle Isle until playground hours were there, and I have lived within the city limits for 25 years. When we were childfree we did more things downtown, but now we rarely go without a specific destination in mind. Especially now that Paul works so close, we rarely travel more than 7-8 miles in any one direction to get anywhere. Hmm. I am sensing a "tourist in your own town" fit coming on.
I love living in Portland, but one of my favorite things about my life in Chicago was the feeling that it was big enough that after 7 years I knew I could still find things I'd never seen before.
I've actually heard that parental abductions compose 90% of all juvenile abductions. I couldn't cite the source though. Most of these are due to some kind of custody dispute or bitter divorce proceedings.
Wow, not only were you in Chicago, but judging by the pictures of Uptown, you were a few blocks from my house. Uptown has such a crazy history what with vets and prisoners being dropped off here in the 70s and 80s to fend for themselves, but the architecture here is phenominal with the old dance halls and theaters and mens clothing stores. Granted, Alusz and I aren't really part of the parenting blogosphere, which means I stayed away from Navy Pier (a general rule for me anyways), but what if I had turned left instead of right on Saturday? I may have just bumped into you.
So.. I just spent many work hours (YEAH!) reading through the archives. I have to say that I have completely fallen in love with the Juniper crew. This post is great and timely, I just moved to a new city and my little gal and I have a lot of ground to cover. I just have to say here that Dutch and Wood, you guys are SO FREAKING COOL. Juniper is scrumptiously cute and I wish she and my little one could play together. I look forward to each new installment of your adventures.
Another wonderful post! Reminds me of a slightly darker version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
I live in a small town in Australia, in a suburb where haphazard planning and landslip risks have left lots of space undeveloped. There're forests, blackberry copses, (small) fields of daffodils, wallabies and rabbits hopping about. These spaces are filled with all manner of possibilities for kid-style adventure, all in the midst of suburbia. And I've never seen a kid - or an adult - play in any of the spaces.
On travel: I like to head for where people live and shamelessly look over fences and into gardens. I never get tired of allotments but my enthusiasm for Great Buildings can wane pretty quickly.
You had Bossy at Passenger Van.
Funny thing about Cabrini Green - it's now really exclusive condos. Bossy saw it on her Design Channel so it must be true.
My friend lived in some of the new designer condos near Cabrini Green before they knocked it down. She never found a bag with drugs, guns and cash, but she did once see a guy carrying a fridge on his back.
Yeah, like Ferris Bueller but without the Ferrari.
Ah, du sprechst Deutsch? Fantastisch!
My favorite word I ever learned in German class -- and one I still use in (English) conversation, IN THE GERMAN -- was "tapetenwechsel." It means "a change of scenery." Or, quite literally, "a change of carpet."
I love Chicago. I've spent many happy "city days" there with my kids. My best friend and I held her baby girl for the first time in Chicago. It's clean, has great food, wonderful museums, and the people are the best. If I lived there, I don't think I would be able to take the city for granted, but thanks for reminding me to appreciated my own.
Loved this post and the article. My favorite subject in school was Environmental Psychology (v. similar to what you mention) and I am now studying urban planning based on this interest. I think the relationship between people and their environments is fascinating and not looked at nearly enough. BTW - one of my favorite things to do in free time is to go exploring with my dog. We find all kinds of interesting places.
I think it was art you found. It's all art, we just forget.
First post, but I've been reading this fantastic blog for several months.
Just a couple quick comments about "my" beautiul city of Chicago:
Berghoff's is now gone and it's a terrible loss, IMO. Cabrini Green is still partly here and, living about a block away from it, I can say that it's still a shit-hole. And whether you think gentrification is a terrible thing or not, I know I wouldn't want to raise kids in that environment. I don't think I'd send a stray cat into those buildings, actually.
Also sign me up for never allowing my kid(s) the same freedom/lack of supervision that I had as a kid in the 70's and 80's. Too scary!
I bet you would like the movie The History Boys (much better than Mr Holland's Opus). The play was a better vehicle for the script, but the film (with the original cast from the play) does it justice. Some great performances in there...
I am so psyched that some other weirdo took German in high school. Guten Tag, Dutch! Everybody else I know took French or Spanish and looks at me weird for my terrible high school German. My son does yell "Kommst du hier, bitte! Mach schnell!" all the time, which is awesome enough to make up for all the weird looks.
And I'm also psyched that you have a whole blog category called "firearms". That is exactly what I look for in a parenting blog.
I'm so sick of silicon valley. Nothing but right turns.
Dutch,
We're three weeks in with our little girl. I've been lurkin' on this site forever, mostly dreaming about our future adventures. We were fortunate enough for our sweeti3 to have her first encounter with an ex-con just days ago.
Wow Dutch--you really took me back to 1985-1987 when my parents kept a VERY short leash on me, yet I would sneak off with my friends and get to Chicago by car or South Shore whenever I could. There is so much more to that town than the Miracle Mile. I saw my very first concert in the Aragon Ballroom (The Replacements), had a very Ferris Beuller experience at a Cubs game, and would wander around with my "weirdo" friends for miles and miles. We would eat huge lunches in Poletown at this great smorgasbord or eat gyros in Greektown. My one and only time riding on the back of a motorcyle was in Chicago during Jazzfest, riding up and down Lake Shore Drive.
My daughters wil be doing none of that.
"And without them and all the other urban paralegals, copy editors, consultants, lawyers, editorial assistants, government employees and research associates bored out of their fucking minds at work, who would be left to read and write blogs?"
As a law school grad, former editorial assistant, and current government employee, I find this so true it hurts...really, really hurts."
I was all set to wax parental on my fears and dreams related to my daughter's future urban and not so urban perambulations, but then you tossed in Debord and I got all giddy from the flashbacks to grad-seminars in French post-structuralism and continental social theory and forgot what I was going to say.
Something good, I think. But I'll never get that moment back, which, you know, maybe isn't such a big deal. I'll take the Debord over more of my own parental angst any day.
Hey misfithausfrau, I saw the Replacements at the Aragon Ballroom too! Probably the same show. It wasn't my first show - that would have been Cheap Trick at the sort of nasty Hammond Indiana Civic Center, where I recall the fire department arriving to put out a blaze under the bleachers by the end! Ahh, good times.
But I digress. Great post. And glad to see so many positive comments about Chicago. It truly is a wonderful place to raise kids. We live in an inner ring suburb (i.e. built to be walkable as opposed to auto-reliant) that is only about a 15-minute train ride from downtown Chicago, yet retains the sort of secure feel of where I grew up in the 70's. While the length of leash for kids is still theoretical for us at this point, our oldest being only 4, I am optimistic my kids can enjoy well in excess of 300 yards of freedom in the coming years.
Hot damn. I'm going to go down that road I always wonder about. Yes.
Thank you for giving me the name to use for what I've been doing all my adult life, most recently in Paris: wandering, no itinerary, in the guise of taking a morning walk. Then writing about it. Yesterday the theme was walk straight until you see a tree then head in that direction. One result of many encounters: a gypsy accordionist proposed to me.
Funny thing is, when I read your lines about Chombart de Lauwe, I had a feeling that I'd read it in college about 30 years ago. Certainly have not enough mental storage capacity to recall it, but I look forward to re-reading both authors.
my grandmother used to tell about her high school trip to Chicago in the 1930s. not much was seen of downtown, but they spent a lot of time at the stockyards, where the highlight was watching the "large black men" in the kill yard drink blood. not terribly much different than your experience, eh?
(btw, enjoying the archives...found my way here via dfunk. I've lived in Kalamazoo for 20+ years, after growing up in the tiny town of Dowagiac, about 45 minutes away.)
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