> I have a 10 year old... I'm considering letting him walk home (about 1/2 -3/4 mile)

That's about 0.8km ~ 1.2km. That's literally 10 minutes of walking, probably less as an energetic kid. What do you imagine will happen to your kid if they're left alone on a 10 minute walk?

It's about as cliched as it gets as a response, but at that age my friends and I were gone for hours on end much further than 1.2km from our homes with 0 devices of any kind, other than 1 or 2 kids that were lucky enough to have a Nokia.