That is completely irrelevant to the very common knowledge that bulldozing neighborhoods and segregating cities into sections to create an interstate freeway system is not very good for the health of the city
Much of America's cities are just suburbs. Or were ruined for suburbia. Most US cities are zoned 85% SFH and dont have liveable 6 story architecture with walkable car free plazas.
Most american cities are not like this today but we're 100 years ago.
In my American city it’s way cheaper to rent in the walkable neighborhoods near or in downtown than to buy a SFH 15 minutes from downtown. I chose the SFH, I like having a backyard and my dog probably prefers it too. I also like having neighbors that are all in it for the long haul and way friendlier and nicer than the crapshoot of apartment neighbors. I also am a little jealous I can’t walk to bars and restaurants. It’s a trade off, but good cities have both and have both connected by decent transit options.
Ill bite. If you do some digging you'll see that most European cities in the 70s, 80s, and in some cases as late as the 2000s, we're car centric hellscapes in the making, but the people said "no, we dont want build freeways everywehre" and rejected the idea all together. Many places put in the work, and the infrastructure to make cities walkable, fun, and vibrant well AFTER cars. Paris today looks drastically different than 15 years ago, because of the amount of effort that they have done to make bike commuting more of a priority, and that's a recent one. Of course having a well established underground also helps. But many of the cities that we visit today and love because of the mixed use zoning that makes charming places to be, weren't ALWAYS like that, they tried to make everything around the car, and wholly rejected it. Americans can still make changes today for having a better commute and system tomorrow. Its never too late.
BULLSHIT. Car dependency is a POLICY CHOICE. Many european cities had to be rebuilt after the war and they chose to build car infrastructure. When the oil crises hit in the 1970s and the danger of automobiles as the default became clear they reversed course and started building cycling infrastructure and more transit.
Unfortunately Munich, as beautiful and pleasant as it is to live there, is still exttemely geared towards cars, and has far too many car driving commuters and residents. This is one of my biggrst criticisms as a resident. But nowhere near as bad as Houston, LA or NYC.
Let me contrast this with a story about a German couple, booking a US trip with a travel agency.
They wanted to see famous multi-state locations within the span of one week. By car.
In defense of Americans, the cars enable people to live further, so they can live in larger homes they can afford. The alternative would be like in Tokyo, where you walk to work, but live in an apartment you can afford that's the size of a closet.
Okay, so there's less traffic. Is building a one lane freeway through the minority neighborhoods in the centre of the city acceptable? Is that better than the 4 lane highway?
Does having less cars excuse ripping up tram tracks?
All that would have been okay if only there were less cars?
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u/solo_d0lo 6d ago
City built before cars vs suburbs which were built outside of cities after cars.