When I was a kid, we all let the dogs out.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

One the OP themes, its an interesting situation. when I was a kid, I remember hearing about how Columbus was passing a leash law and we thought that was just crazy (Oh my god, you can't play Frisbee with your dog in the park?!?!?!). I remember kids running around outside, riding their bikes all over town, and I distinctly remember all the people that sat on their front porches and yelled at the kids, or called their parents when they saw the kid do something dumb. Ah, my one and only day of playing hooky. My parents knew by 9:30 AM, I was picked up and in class by 10.

I remember walking home from school and some bullies tried to pick a fight with me (but I didn't fight cause ya know, Jesus wants us to be pansies). Anyway, an old retired farmer who had moved into town saw what was happening and stormed out of his house across the street and scared the crap out of those kids.

Then again, I remember when I was 10 and visiting a family, their doberman bit my face open and I got 20 stitches and two permanent scars... and my parents were just around the corner of the house at the time.

When I went back to my hometown recently, it is still like that. There were still kids all over the place and dogs too. Here in Columbus, its as Nigel described, there in Roseville, its not really changed much. Though the old people on the porches are fewer cause they're dying... and younger people don't seem to care about porches.

[Juana]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

Please tell me thats a fucking joke.  No tag?  No wonder I see so many fat kids now, nobody lets them run anymore.

Do these schools just not have grass? We were told not to run on the blacktop (unless we were playing basketball or something) but were free to run around on the grass and wood chips.

What is this "GRASS" you speak of? Are they gray-brown, hard, and poky? We've got lots, if so.

And half crab grass, yes. Although in my bit of 1950s suburbia heaven, it was always semi-green except in the summer when the sun cooked the living shit out of it.

Green? Green... What's green? This is a desert, yo. We've got any shade of puke yellow and diarrhea brown you want, but I dunno what this "green" is.

Point still stands. It's not blacktop, it's not walk way cement, it's not a shit ton of rocks. They can (or SHOULD be able) to run around on it and not seriously injure themselves.

[Freeky]

When I was a kid, we could run wherever we wanted, as long as it was on the playground.