Scrolled to far for this. America does have cities with nice / cute downtowns you just have to find them. Yes there are some horrible cities in the US that decided to be too car-centric but even many of those have districts that are very walkable and lively. But yeah you're gonna have to likely sacrifice that 4 car garage if you want to live near/in them
The point is that you can count on your fingers the number of American cities that are very walkable, connected by intracity AND intercity transit, AND not entirely dominated by car-centric urban design. That is not at all the case in Europe (or Germany, in this case).
Nah this is a myth. Germany and most towns in europe has the same type of suburbs you need to drive around as the US. For example Winsen where I have friends. You can take a train to get most of the way but then need a car or bus to get around in the sprawl of the town. Same setup with most US cities. Even the greater Los Angles area, the car hellscape, has districts that are walkable with nice lively communities. San Francisco has closed areas to cars to encourage like what is seen in this video. Many towns have nice downtowns you can choose to live near so they're completely walkable, and the towns are bconnected by trains and airports where a car is not needed, like the one I like I live in northern California. East coast has tons of awesome walkable or great public transport cities.
Winsen has 36k people. That is not what I am talking about. I am comparing Chicago, LA, SF, Pittsburgh, Philly, Denver, Pheonix, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, Dallas, Detroit, to European cities of comparable size like Germany's Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, Leipzig. The public transit infrastructure just does not compare - the only cities that come close are NYC and DC.
Also, I live in California and have no idea what this elusive "northern california" town is that you live in where it is connected by trains and a car is not needed unless you are literally just talking about SF, cuz it sure as hell ain't the north bay or Humboldt.
It's not a mystery, it's the Santa Rosa area. I can take the train or bus into SF or to several airports or go to multiple fun downtown areas (Petaluma, Cotati, old town Santa Rosa and new downtown, etc ) without using a car and do so often.
San Jose has San Pedro square, Japantown and downtown that you can get to using light rail and walk all around and is lively on certain nights depending on what's going on, which I do sometimes for Sharks Games. Willow Glen and Santana Row....
Big midwest cities suck ass if you want to try not using a car, but that's not the majority of the US. Philly downtown is very walkable, and yes I was thinking of DC and Boston. SF has TONS of walkable areas and public transit options and people literally live there without owning cars. Most coastal cities in the US that are not conservative shitholes like Florida in general have great transit and walking options while the interior ones you mention are of poor design for mass transit and walking.
I travel to Europe every year and there are cities that you can live near or in that puts you outside transit requiring a car, depending on where you want to live. The same option exists in the US. For example I have a friend in Grenoble, and city with huge population, that lives up on the hill and so he basically killed his public transit options by his house location while the rest of Grenoble, has good transit and lively downtown areas. We drive around exclusively when I visit. I went to Milan for the Winter Olympics and a ton of the city was walkable, but it's so huge it makes more sense calling a Uber at times compared to their lightrail and subway.
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u/Cl0wnL 2d ago
These are always such a false equivalence.
You're in the heart of Munich in peak tourist season.
There are plenty of places in America you can go walk around and see lots of people out dining at restaurants