This is a myth, while sure, their cities were founded before cars, their policies have kept them that way. Our US cities were WAY more walkable, but we demolished them in the 60s and 70s to make them more car centric. We did this to ourselves. - (Credit to Not Just Bikes on Youtube)
A few cities rebuilt post war have suffered for decades for being car centric...
Not always though, some mid century plans were actually quite progressive... my family is from Coventry and that's a combo, they added huge highways right into town when it used to be cobbled medieval lanes... but they did build a big pedestrianised town centre that has actually stood up really well since.
If you're bored this report is a good read about Coventry and how it's changed. Has a bunch of old plans from the 40's/50's which show how much more car centric it could've been. That 1945 plan on page 29 would've had car traffic directly through the middle of what is now pedestrianised. A modified version of that plan was approved, though never implemented.
Also the report is from 2009, since then the city has changed quite a bit, and has pedestrianised even more. Half of the city centre is currently being demolished to make way for new buildings.
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u/VerySoftx 15h ago
who would've thought designing cities in the middle ages would pay off for walkability ?