(Madrid) In June, I was with an international group, and we were lamenting that no one from any of our respective countries seems very comfortable allowing their children to walk alone to school. We all walked to school when we were kids, even though the crime rate–at least in the US–was much higher then. It seems as if parents raised in the mid-1900s let their late-1900s children walk around dangerous cities, but we are too nervous to let our early-2000s offspring do the same.

Now I am in the very dynamic and impressive MediaLab Prado, a “citizen laboratory that functions as a meeting place for the production of open cultural projects.” And I have just encountered Camino Escola Seguro, A Safe Path to School. In part, it involves knitted safety notices that assure families that local shopkeepers and residents are keeping their eyes on the streets and making them safe for children to walk to school.

I’m not saying this would work everywhere. Maybe it won’t work at all. But I love the spirit of people reclaiming the common resource of a safe walk to school.