The 'home habitat' of a typical eight-year-old, the area that a child can travel around on their own, has shrunk to one-ninth its size in just a single generation.
The decline, tantamount to the near-extinction of the outdoor child as a species, is partly a side effect of wider social changes. Families are getting smaller, more parents are working longer hours and communities are fragmented, leaving children with fewer friendly faces to look out for them, while the entertainment industry makes ever more seductive indoor offers.
Fear plays a key role in excluding children from the outdoors: parents'
fears of traffic (probably justified) and strangers (arguably not) and children's fear of crime and bullying. There is growing hostility to children in public space. Parents fear being judged harshly if their kids are seen outside unaccompanied, and put pressure on their children to spend time on homework and more structured activities.
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