I spent my childhood in Brooklyn (just a bridge away from Manhattan) just before the internet was a thing, and it seems pretty normal relative to what friends from other places describe. In fact, better in some ways. It was always easy to get a group of kids together to do whatever. We had pickup baseball (usually stickball), basketball, hide-and-seek and other games. There were 2 nice parks and several pocket parks in easy walking distance. Most of us had and rode bikes everywhere. A lot of my friends went to different schools (because of the density you might walk 3 blocks to the elementary school north of you, or 4 to the one south), so there were always new pools of people to interact with.

Though I moved away my sister still lives there and has kids of her own, and it seems pretty much the same now as it was then. Since the density of the place hasn’t changed too much it actually seems more the same than where I live now, which has significantly changed in terms of population and traffic (and is heavily car-dependent) in just the last 15 years.

As there’s no responses, I’ll offer that my friends’ kids in dense parts of NYC, LA, SF, DC, etc. do all those activities. (Maybe the ones in LA don’t go sit by the LA “river.”) There’s usually loads of neighborhood parks and less formal places in cities where kids play (like playing soccer in an alley). And I know my friends in urban centers have their kids in just as many organized sports leagues as my friends who live in the suburbs. (It might actually be easier on the parents in the cities because my suburban friends are like youth sports taxi services every weekend whereas the ones in NYC have enough population density where the league is in the neighborhood.)

So, my impression (from the parents’ childless friend’s side) is that kids, like Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs, find a way. They’ll play hide and seek in a desert and try to hide behind tumbleweeds.

Again, sorry if I’m talking out of turn but this is Lemmy and there were no responses yet so I thought I’d toss in what I’ve seen as an adult. Gotta feed the content maw until the Fediverse grows up to be an uncontrollable beast.

Grew up in a sizeable metropolitan area, in a residential enclave surrounded by commercial areas. The "inner" streets in our area are a bit too narrow for car traffic, but was often used as a shortcut by pedestrians.

We mostly played games on the residential streets, pausing to the occasional pedestrian, or the rare car to pass by. If we do play hide and seek, we can play it through the narrow alleyways of our area or even the nearby commercial buildings (we always agree on the bounds beforehand though). Sometimes, we hang out in the nearby arcade. Rarely, we go to the nearby seaside (as the city is next to the coast) just to hang out, but crossing the really wide eight-lane roads cutting off the seaside makes it kinda rare.

I've often found myself in places I shouldn't be, like off-limits areas in the nearby commercial buildings, even managed to sneak inside one of the rooms of the nearby motel that one time. There's a lot of things to get lost in around our area and I took it for granted that most things are just a short walk away.

The place I hung out the most, however, is a bookstore that was just across the road from the end of our street. And since this bookstore is also near the arcade, I'd choose one or the other depending on my mood, and remaining allowance.

In LA, my situation was mostly playing video games at friends' homes after school. I've taken buses since I was in middle school, though, and had a key to my home. That said, my dad is and was an abusive alcoholic, so I generally stayed out as long as possible.

Mind you, how unsafe the city is isn't really true in many neighborhoods, especially if you're with other teens. You can always hang out at various locations like malls, parks, the beach, library or at school. You have a lot of options in the city, especially if you're willing to take a bus or bike places. I had friends who volunteered for Heal the Bay, for instance.

I didn't grow up in a city, but currently live in one. I see teens take public transit to the mall and such. Wish I could have done that instead of relying on parents to drive me everywhere.

Dallas. We pretty much only went to houses and did everything indoors. There are essentially no sidewalks there, so leaving a neighborhood without a car was impossible.

I can’t think of a single time that I was in a public place totally alone before I could drive. The first time I walked to a convenience store with a friend, I felt like I was going to get in trouble. I later realized how much my upbringing delayed my ability to mature as a young teen.