Would you rather be a free range chicken or that chicken in a tiny cage. I would submit to you that a child penned up in his suburban 6' solid fenced back yard, because the street he lives on is not safe for children due to strangers in high speed cars and trucks is little better off than a caged chicken. He has no more effective ability to learn how to reign - to exercise his will and creativity in regards to the outdoor world and his social environs. Back to God, the developer, and His culturally sustainable town. The streets of the town are filled with boys and girls playing in the streets.
Children can safely explore a world that is much larger and more diverse than their own backyards.
They can play safely in the streets with other neighborhood children without constant supervision. They have a moving, free range - they can be kings and queens. Whether it was riding my bike a mile to my sisters and stopping to play in the woods or throw stones at the carp in the creek, or taking the haybaler to the next farm, or stacking bales better on a wagon than any adult had ever stacked them, or riding my bike up to the post office to get the mail. The key was that the lane was private - the neighbors owned and controlled it together, and, that a stranger who drove down it had to turn around and drive back out, knowing that there was probably someone in one of those houses watching him. It was a reflective, automatic response to her range and reign as a child.