Japanese law says that no child should have to go more than two and a half miles to get to elementary school. But i's not just the distance between home and school that determines whether kids can safely make the walk. There is also another urban design factor, the size of the streets. The united states has really wide streets, even in residential neighborhoods. These days, streets are often designed to be wide enough to give fire engines room to manoeuvre.
Back in March, Netflix picked up a long running Japanese TV program based on a children’s book from the 1970s. The show is called Old Enough, but the name of the original Japanese program translates to My First Errand. Because in each episode, a child runs an errand for the very first time. Episodes are only 10 to 20 minutes long, but in that short time a toddler treats the audience to a bite-sized hero's journey.
My First Errand is a gimmicky show with hokey music and a laugh track, but it’s also rooted in a truth about Japanese society: most children are remarkably independent from a very young age -- way more independent than children in the US. In Japanese cities, fifth-graders make 85 percent of their weekday trips without a parent. And this remarkable child mobility is made possible by everything from the neighbors next door to the width of the streets.
First Errand