I'm with you Jenny. Most of the kids in our neighbourhood go to different schools all over the city. They don' t know one another and even if they did, they certainly wouldn' t play outside even if their patents would let them.
One of the downsides of living in a big city is that there are enough weirdos about, that parents are reluctant to let their little ones outside unsupervised. Heck, when I was little (somwhere in the dim and distant past) , my Mum would let me go outside in the morning to play and just told me to be home in time for dinner. Mind you, we lived in a town of about 35,000 people.