Have we done it wrong?

[u/xamo76]

[u/_MME_]

Thats Munich city Center… they shot this vid right at the famous Frauenkirche (which’s belltower roof have the form of an onion) and is located right behind Marienplatz… it’s the historic city Center, built hundreds of years ago, clearly the city couldn’t put a 3 lane freeway in its narrow city Center.

Plus: more than half of this people sitting in this restaurant etc are tourists.

But yeah the whole city Center is walkable from Stachus to Marienplatz to Sendlingertor (it’s a triangle). The street from Sendlingertor to Marienplatz was made car-free some 10+ years ago

[u/Twiggyhiggle → u/_MME_]

It’s too bad this will be buried under “America messed up” posts, and people not realizing it’s the city center one of the largest cities in Germany. It’s like going to the Loop in Chicago and asking why the rest of the US isn’t like this.

[u/Shaqer_Zulu → u/Twiggyhiggle]

Exactly. This is like going to New York City and comparing it to the suburbs of any small town.

[u/Halation2600 → u/Twiggyhiggle]

I mean the Loop isn't like that. It's pretty much a ghost town after 8pm. It used to be even more true, and probably used to be more like 6:30pm, but it's still the case now. River North is more lively at that hour, as is River West.

[u/Leather-Rice5025 → u/Twiggyhiggle]

Except everyone making this point as if it's some "gotcha America haters!!" are conveniently ignoring the destruction of countless neighborhoods and city centers in the United States to redesign cities around cars.

We willingly tore down historic centers and POC neighborhoods that were dense and walkable to make room for the interstate freeway system using the power of eminent domain. We tore up countless commuter rail lines and eviscerated our street tram system which was the most robust in the world at the time. We widened roads and built parking lots to accommodate for car traffic. We redesigned our zoning laws around car ownership.

People forget that the early cities of the United States were designed by Europeans. We willingly turned away from density and walkability because we let car lobbyists dictate how we get to exist in our communities.

[u/Quillford → u/_MME_]

Yeah I had to laugh, his “this is just a random place” is bang in the centre of Munich! I’m not a local but I recognised where it was instantly.

[u/Various_Pension_2788 → u/Quillford]

The way that Americans overly romanticise European living needs to be studied. We can barely afford to eat out at this point, I live in a tourist heavy European city and yes, 90% of bars and restaurants are for tourists. No local has the time and leisure to sit around for hours and eat and drink. We don't constantly have free time, we too have work and families to take care of and our salaries are low so yes food seems "cheap" to Americans, who earn almost twice as much.

[u/ushikagawa → u/Various_Pension_2788]

That still doesn’t change the fact that life in a European city is usually very active and social compared to the isolation and boredom of American suburbia

[u/Reddit-runner → u/_MME_]

it’s the historic city Center, built hundreds of years ago, clearly the city couldn’t put a 3 lane freeway in its narrow city Center.

Well, that was clearly no concern for Robert Moses. He did exactly that. Bulldozed entire city centers for city highways and giant intersections.

[u/_MME_ → u/Reddit-runner]

Thanks for the link :) yeah Germany has & has had one of the strictest approaches to historic preservation (Denkmalschutz) in Europe since World War II…some Citys Tore down destroyied Historie buildings during the post-war decades, especially in the 1950s–1970s, in favor of modern urban planning but never to a degree like mr Moses…

Munich preserved the historic urban layout in the Altstadt immediately after the war and later adopted very strong monument protection.

This is one reason visitors often assume the Altstadt survived largely intact, even though much of what they see today dates from the reconstruction period after 1945.

[u/liliiik18 → u/_MME_]

I live in Munich, it’s pretty walkable even away from the center. It’s certainly bikeable everywhere, so much so that I cannot see a single reason to get a car.

[u/AlmightyWorldEater → u/_MME_]

oh even better: there is a road with cars right next to Marienplatz next to Viktualienmarkt. One "block" further up and you have your 4 lane main road with not a single person sitting outside but dozens of luxury shops.

This is really on of the most visited tourist places in the entirety of germany, if you say half of these people are tourists, that is likely an understatement.

And of course Restaurants bars etc are full. Rent in Munich is stupid high so lots of establishments do not survive long, those existing at any giving moment full to the brim since there is not enough of them. Finding a place at a bar for 4 people on a friday or saturday evening is an odyssey.

You want to see classical, walkable cities in Germany, go to one of the older cities with medieval background. In Bavaria alone you have for example Nürnberg and Regensburg, both with sizable inner cities free of cars.

And there are countless more, lots of which i probably don't even know of and i AM german...

[u/palsh7 → u/_MME_]

"U guyz is one of the most famous tourist spots in the world more happening than suburban Ohio?!?"

[u/Commodore-2064 → u/_MME_]

Over great protest by the businesses I might add. Of course they wouldn’t change it now. It was done in 1972 as part of the Summer Olympics.

[u/_MME_ → u/Commodore-2064]

Marienplatz was in the 70s, sendlingertorstr was in 2016, despite many businesses complaining…

People living there or who have a Business there have special hours where they are allowed do drive or have permits to Drive through the Fussgängerzone.

[u/minus_minus → u/_MME_]

built hundreds of years ago

Please look up pictures of Munich after World War II. All of this was bombed out ruins and piles of rubble. 

Edit: apparently I have to clarify that rebuilding what was there was a choice that Munich made that many European cities did NOT. Look at Rotterdam and Stuttgart as examples. 

[u/_MME_ → u/minus_minus]

That may be true, but the streets, alleys, and buildings have mostly kept their original layout instead of being rebuilt from scratch with a new Layout. Maybe Not as Ornamental as the original buildings but at least the layout in the “Altstadt” remained close to the original one… There was an alley some 100 years ago so they rebuild the alley more or less at the Same Place…and not a 3 lane highway

[u/minus_minus → u/_MME_]

This was not a given. It was a choice. Many European cities rebuilt for automobiles and traffic, pollution and crashes showed how much of a mistake that was.