When we moved into our present home, in 2002, I thought we had a nice, quiet, mature neighborhood. Never saw any kids playing in their yards or the street like when I was a kid in the 60s.
Then, in 2004 we had a hurricane and power was off for a week.
There were kids everywhere! All out in the streets, playing, running around, just like back then.
Then the power came back and the kids disappeared.......................
Good memories for me too, of us kids playing in the streets in the 1950s. Although my career was in I.T., I kept my kids away from computers in the 1970s & 1980s. I wanted them to enjoy the outdoors like I did. Sadly, there's no escaping computer gadgets for kids now, and my young granddaughters have their own iPads and access to the Internet. A 7-year-old and 6-year-old granddaughters (they're cousins in different states) regularly video chat almost daily, and with us on their devices. Nice thing is they can walk around and show us their activities on their mobile devices, something that used to be done on non-audio video film sent via mail to relatives (for all of a few minutes per reel).