> But none of the suburbanites worried about cities seem to mind that there are SUVs whizzing around their residential neighborhoods at 40+ miles per hour.
The pavements are often much wider in suburbs, and/or separated from the road by trees. That's the difference. You're not in a high rise apartment building that opens directly on to pavement, which is 4ft from a road.
Empirically the most dangerous cities for pedestrians are sprawling ones with large high-speed-limit pedestrian-hostile roads, not denser ones with walkable streets.
But that most places in the USA are pretty unsafe for pedestrians nowadays, especially children. We would do well to introduce traffic calming, improve pedestrian/bike infrastructure, and cut speed limits in all areas where people commonly walk down to a max of about 20 miles/hour.
It would also make streets much safer to reduce the proportion of SUVs and large pickup trucks. Disincentivizing these vehicles should be an explicit government policy goal.
Those are all great ideas, but to the average voter you might as well be saying we should outlaw apple pie. Political will behind reforms like this is very hard to find and always in danger of being voted out by angry drivers.
> Empirically the most dangerous cities for pedestrians are sprawling ones with large high-speed-limit pedestrian-hostile roads, not denser ones with walkable streets.
The pavements are often much wider in suburbs, and/or separated from the road by trees. That's the difference. You're not in a high rise apartment building that opens directly on to pavement, which is 4ft from a road.