Opinion: Where do the kids go?

Ask any adult and they will surely tell you that their community was once bursting with places for them to hang out when they were young. Bustling arcades with countless games, malls where they would gather with friends, shops they could frequent without worry, and environments that fostered togetherness were all once trademarks of a neighborly society. However, in recent years, there has been a growing hostility towards younger age groups, especially teenagers, that has tainted this ideal community.

Just a few decades ago, so much of society was geared toward teenagers, including malls, bowling alleys, arcades, retail stores, and much more. In today’s age, however, if people take a look around any small town, including Lansdale, PA, it becomes clear that places where teenagers could once hang out outside of school are becoming few and far between. As a result of living in the North Penn School District, it is not uncommon to have to drive over twenty minutes to the nearest age-appropriate recreational activity, an example of this being that there is no bowling alley in the entirety of the school district. On top of that, with the closest viable mall being the King of Prussia Mall, youths in this community are forced to rule out one of their most infamous haunts. These distances, which deter teenagers who don’t live nearby, highlight a growing problem in the country: there’s nowhere for youths to go.

    Lans Bowl, which succumbed to a fire in 2007, after 66 years of operation, was one of two local bowling alleys in the NPSD community that no longer exists. (Image courtesy of https://www.pinterest.com/pin/lansbowl-before-its-fire–387942955371826253/)
  

Additionally, any plot of land that opens the possibility of building something that fosters togetherness is often turned into a storage or retail building that has no recreational use to the general public. A prime example of this phenomenon is the recent ongoing construction of the shopping center in Towamencin Township on Allentown Road and Forty Foot Road, where several of these commonplace buildings have been or will be constructed. Existing structures are Wells Fargo, Wendy’s, Verizon, and Planet Fitness, and future plans for the shopping center include Target, Whole Foods, Chipotle, and a mattress store. All of these existing and soon-to-be-built locations are failing to remedy the problems presented to the youths of this world. Those in charge of planning the layouts of these shopping centers seem to be so focused on getting name brands into their town that they have forgotten about who these buildings could instead create a better, more engaged community for. If there were plans for a new bowling alley, an arcade, a movie theater, or any other form of family-friendly and teenager-friendly recreational activities, there would undoubtedly be more excitement and support surrounding its construction. It’s time to rethink how we build our communities for the whole community, especially our youth.

With every aspect of their lives consumed by school, it would only be on the weekends and during breaks that teenagers would be able to truly enjoy what is often hailed as “the best years of their lives,” and yet they are now having doors slammed in their faces because of their age. Willow Grove Mall’s new parental supervision policy, which bars anyone under eighteen from entering the mall after 3:00 PM on weekends without a parent, is just one of many examples of this. Willow Grove Mall isn’t the only location to enforce these types of laws, with many other places even outright refusing to serve or entertain youths if they do not have some sort of adult presence with them. Furthermore, even when teenagers do go to a place where they are permitted, they are often treated as bothersome children rather than the young adults that they are. These restrictions and ignominy continue to keep children from enjoying the life they were promised by their parents.

    Time Gone By – West Point Park, formerly located off Garfield Ave in West Point, PA, is now home to houses. The Park, which closed in 1989, was, for many families, a popular entertainment destination in the summer. (Credit: Knight Crier)
  

Discriminatory policies and a lack of general safe spaces also help to fuel the growing issue of electronic dependency seen in younger generations. Adults often complain that their child never leaves the house, or they only ever see teenagers on their phones even when they’re outside, but it is not hard to link this phenomenon to the world they were born into. When faced with a hostile environment, it is only natural that someone would turn to the one place that welcomes them, which, in this case, is the Internet. The Internet, for the vast majority of these kids’ lives, served as their “mall,” a place where they could easily connect to their friends and freely engage in their interests. With this understanding, combined with the knowledge of how the world treats teenagers nowadays, it’s not hard to understand why youths are retreating to the comfort of their phones. If getting kids to step away from their electronics is truly a problem adults wish to solve, they must first create environments outside of the internet that welcome them, and not chase them away when they ask for somewhere to go. 

(This was reprinted from "The Knight Crier" North Penn High School student newspaper. The views expressed are the author's own and are not representative of North Penn Now or North Penn School District.)