Why Kids -- and Cities-- Need Nature

"Today's children...are systematically cut off from natural play. 'Well-meaning public-school systems, media and parents are effectively scaring children straight out of the woods and fields.' The stated reasons seem endless, from Lime's Disease to multiplying park rules to perceived perils of kid-snatching. With today's superhighways, thick traffic, shopping malls and rigid control by community associations, fewer children get a chance to walk or bike to school. A study of three generations of 9-year-olds found that by 1990, the radius around the home that children were allowed to play had sunk to a ninth of what it had been in 1970. Increasingly, Louv laments, 'nature is something to watch, to consume, to wear — to ignore.' He cites a television ad that depicts an SUV racing along a breathtakingly beautiful mountain stream — while two children in the back seat watch a movie on a flip-down video screen, oblivious to the landscape and water beyond the windows."