Comment by exabrial
3 years ago
The real difference though is American cities blossomed with the same arc automobile came into fruition.
I just recently got back from Germany and the primary thing I noticed about their public transportation infrastructure is that most of it is using right of ways that have been in place for… hundreds of years.
Driving in America is an unfortunate necessity in the vast majority of places (The minority being the oldest coastal cities) and that annoys me greatly, but it’s the reality of it.
I do choose to live downtown so I can walk or bike. But those are my options :/
This is often repeated, but it misses the full story.
I myself used to believe that to be the case, but fairly recently learned that many European cities used to have significantly more car infrastructure and reversed course, while at the same time, many American cities had walkable infrastructure that was later bulldozed for cars.
There’s nothing inevitable about the way we build/built cities in America, it’s a matter of choice and priorities.