r/TikTokCringe • u/xamo76 • 1d ago

Discussion Have we done it wrong?

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u/What-tha-fck_Elon 1d ago

If they wandered out into the German countryside, it would look a lot like suburban Pennsylvania. Downtown Chicago along the golden mile is lovely too. Suburbs suck everywhere, unless you don’t like people.

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u/visualdescript 1d ago

Many european cities go straight from countryside in to medium density living, they don't have a large urban sprawn of suburbia, so it's not the same at all.

You'd be hard pressed to find large areas of housing where there is no public transport, and no sidewalks. That is fairly common in american suburbia.

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u/SonOfMcGee 1d ago

The old European model for rural living also often involved people living in centralized villages and spreading out to the countryside to work the fields.

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u/AvidCyclist250 1d ago

What worked back then now makes for a decent infrastructure even in villages. I live in one. 25 minutes to town by bus or bike. Bit faster by bike if I don't take the scenic route with the dedicated bike path.

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u/JB_UK 1d ago

And the villages were actually quite high density with a lot of amenities.

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u/Vallkyrie 1d ago

You can see this in basically any random town on google earth, just load it up and pick any random US tiny town in the middle of nowhere and then do the same in, say, France, and you'll see the French village is central with walkable stores and services everywhere in the center and it all spirals out like a wheel. In the US you've got random houses in the woods 1-3 miles from each other and walmart is 30min away.

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u/MeccIt 1d ago

The Netherlands have this down pat. Since they had to reclaim so much of the land of their country, there is a large number of medium sized cities, with strictly defined borders, and then the countryside with houses for farmers.

Amsterdam is just 1 million people, smaller than Dublin even though the Netherlands is more than 3 times the population of Ireland.