I had the same reaction.  I grew up in suburban Chicago and it seemed nothing like this.  We walked to elementary school, to friends&#x27; houses, to the center of town for ice cream.  When I was a little older we rode bikes all over creation -- to the hobby store, the mall, and plenty of adventures like sneaking into the abandoned Borg-Warner research facility in Des Plaines, or dumpster diving for discarded electronics at Motorola in Schaumburg.