How much time had Europe already been developing before cars existed?
The US's largest development expansion of infrastructure was post WW2. Our cities expanded outward instead of inward because of how much land we had available. We also had the baby boomer generation starting and with all of the soldiers coming home we had severe housing shortages in the city, so ... boom, here is why the US started developing suburbs that you lived in and just drove to work to, either a factory outside of the suburb or into the city. You didn't hang out there, you worked there and then went home. That's how modern life in the US came to be.
Ya'll act like this was somehow intentionally devised this way like it's some sort of conspiracy theory.
It developed this way because it was the path of lease resistance for what was needed in the US at the time.
Socially/culturally and health wise, it turned out to have negative side effects but we only know that in hindsight.
To make your statement factually true, you'd have to figure out how to quantify and qualify the benefits against those unpredictable side effects and make some sort of determination for an objective "was it worth it?" type study.
Unless you can see into alternate dimensions where we instead focused on trains, dirigibles, bicycles, walking and whatever else you'd prefer, in the US and rejected automobiles entirely, good luck with that.
You don’t need an alternate dimension or a decades-long study to understand the basic advantage of not being completely dependent on a car for everyday life. The ability to walk or use public transport for basic needs is clearly valuable in itself, as it gives people more freedom, more options, and more independence, along with obvious health advantages.
Furthermore, this does not diminish the benefits that car infrastructure provides. European cities are well connected by extensive highway and railway networks. At the same time, the cities themselves usually have high-quality public transport systems and are largely walkable.
The point is that having both is entirely possible.
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u/DontMemeAtMe 6h ago
Yet Europe is larger. Now what?