Traffic safety is the main reason that US kids aren't out there playing. Because we're "rich" we've created a car-choked hellscape where nobody can be outside. We're so much more "rich" than those backwards people who have to walk to the store or ride a filthy bus.
Now, it may still be true that pedestrians or child pedestrians are killed at a higher rate (per capita, per car, and/or per mile driven) in the US than in Guatemala (or other countries that are not "rich"). However, for that possibility to be plausible, there would need to be at least a credible, substantive explanation.
It's more about the perception than the reality. People won't let their kids out because it appears to be rather dangerous. They drive them everywhere instead.
The dig at Americans' self image as "rich" is a reference to the famous line by Enrique Peñalosa: a developed country is not a place where the poor have cars; it's a place where the wealthy ride the bus. I live part-time in Switzerland where the traffic violence rate is a small fraction of what it is here in the US. I let my kids roam the city because it's safe. I won't let them roam around in Oakland where we don't even have sidewalks. My neighbors consider themselves to be very rich compared to my neighbors in Zurich. They have a huge tacky mansion and two Porsche SUVs, and their kids are stupid and fat and have diabetes.
> It's more about the perception than the reality.
What's the "it" here? The article's statement? If so, that's my disappointment. They could easily have added the adjective "perceived" or ommitted the part about practicality.
> The dig
A dig is not, in general, substantive, and I fear that your use of words like "hellscape", "backward", "filthy", "tacky", "stupid", and maybe even "fat" have a tendency to inflame and thereby distract from whatever on-topic point you may have.
