Chicago’s Walkable Streets Make Confident Kids

Photo: Nachelle Nocom

If fear is the most common currency of Americans, parents might be paying the highest price. Stories of stranger danger, social media threats, and a cultural fixation on overprotection have created a crisis of unease. Parents, in their well-meaning attempts to shield their children, often trade freedom for perceived safety. But what if the key to raising independent, resilient kids lies not in stricter rules or tech-driven safeguards, but in the spaces where they grow up—in better urban design?

The influence of urban design on individual and community well-being is increasingly in conversation. Alexandra Lange’s end-of-year essay in CityLab connects parenting challenges to housing and street layouts, making the case for how walkable, accessible neighborhoods reduce the strain on families. Similarly, Wired recently argued that “boring” car-dependent cities drain human vitality, contributing to both physical and mental health struggles.

The relationship between urban design and childhood independence is easy to understand in theory, especially for those familiar with urbanist principles. But it is something else entirely to witness it play out in real time. That became clear this past summer when my family moved back to Chicago after several years in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis is a city like none other—it keeps its own time and rhythm—but it is a place that lost its human scale in the postwar era and is slowly regrafting its urban skin. Memphis’ sprawling layout and limited transit options make independence for kids nearly unattainable. Simple tasks, like walking to school or visiting a friend, required adult supervision or a car.

Photo: Adrian Swancar

In Chicago, the transformation was immediate. Within weeks of returning, my twelve-year-old was walking to the lakefront with friends and taking public transit to visit his grandparents. When school started, he walked home with his younger sisters in tow. Together, they crossed streets with confidence, picked up on cardinal directions, noted landmarks, and engaged with their surroundings. His self-assurance grew exponentially. His younger siblings, watching his newfound independence, mirrored it—calling out bus numbers, identifying train routes, and connecting destinations. Their worlds expanded in both time and space.

Walkable cities don’t just promote physical activity or environmental sustainability—they cultivate agency and resilience in children. The psychology is simple: when children move through public spaces on their own, they learn to assess risks, solve problems and engage with their surroundings. Urban environments designed with pedestrians and transit in mind force kids to map their world, both literally and figuratively. They navigate a tapestry of new sensory inputs, interwoven with familiar markers, such as neighborhood playgrounds, and familiar faces, such as crossing guards, that help them build a deeper understanding of community. Through these experiences, they begin to find their place within a broader sense of place.

In his recent book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” sociologist Jonathan Haidt shows how rising rates of childhood anxiety and depression among young people are often tied to environments that limit opportunities for independence and manageable risks. Haidt’s findings build on his earlier work in “The Coddling of the American Mind,” where he introduced the concept of “antifragility”—the idea that children grow stronger when they face and overcome age-appropriate challenges.

Walkable urban environments naturally provide these opportunities. When children confidently navigate public spaces, they’re not just traveling from one location to another; they’re engaging in the small interactions that form the foundation of civic life. They encounter variety—textures, details and decisions that need to be made—and diversity—of people, environments and experiences—that challenge their assumptions and open up new ways of thinking and acting. It is in shared public spaces where the seeds of civic engagement are sown.

Photo: Matthew Jackson

Chicago’s relentless grid provides an ideal framework to elevate urban design as an economic, social and cultural catalyst across the city. Ensuring equitable streetscape standards, particularly in transit-poor and disinvested neighborhoods, would expand access to safer streets and better public spaces. Policies like the proposed City Council ordinance to reduce speed limits from 30 mph to 25 mph in key areas could encourage pedestrian activity, inviting more people to use the street. At the same time, more transit-oriented development (TOD) would bring walkability and density to areas where car dependency remains a barrier.

The breadth of Chicago’s housing stock and its walkable neighborhoods makes it an attractive market for families looking to raise resilient kids. Yet policies intended to guide development rarely foreground the integration of urban design, real estate and the needs of children—they should. Perhaps an emergent coalition of policymakers and developers looking to create long-term value and growth—think parking maximums and playground minimums—will tap into Chicago’s urbanist advantage, leveraging its inherent assets as a powerful attractor for families. It was for mine.

Returning to Chicago has revealed how good urban design unlocks potential for children, for families, and for communities at large. A child’s newfound independence is a microcosm of what’s possible when neighborhoods, towns and cities are planned for people first.

Americans harp a lot about freedom. It starts with two feet. When we move beyond the sprawl that creates cultures of dependency and invest in infrastructure that creates space for autonomy, we build resilience in the young and make us all strut a little easier—and a little stronger—into the future.