It’s all very anecdotal but where I lived you could get from my apartment building to the playground without crossing any streets. All kids were just running around unsupervised starting at 6-7yo (for me it was closer to 5yo). The entire playground was just communist style metal constructions. I cut myself on rusty nails, was hit by a metal swing and twisted my ankle while jumping off the top of a slide. Today the entire playground was replaced by wooden, safe toys and I can’t imagine kids playing there unsupervised. Times have changed. It’s simple as that.
In my country these fancier playgrounds are like a few per city, whereas the soviet ones were (are) much more common, so a side effect is that you could’ve gone to that top photo without crossing any streets, versus your parents would take you to the bottom one (either walk you there or go by car)
It’s all very anecdotal but where I lived you could get from my apartment building to the playground without crossing any streets. All kids were just running around unsupervised starting at 6-7yo (for me it was closer to 5yo). The entire playground was just communist style metal constructions. I cut myself on rusty nails, was hit by a metal swing and twisted my ankle while jumping off the top of a slide. Today the entire playground was replaced by wooden, safe toys and I can’t imagine kids playing there unsupervised. Times have changed. It’s simple as that.
What I had:
What kids have today:
In my country these fancier playgrounds are like a few per city, whereas the soviet ones were (are) much more common, so a side effect is that you could’ve gone to that top photo without crossing any streets, versus your parents would take you to the bottom one (either walk you there or go by car)