I'm always wondering how Americans feel traveling to Europe and being able to walk in cities. It must be so surreal that they either have to move, or they can't fathom that these cities are practical to live in.
I'm always wondering how Americans feel traveling to Europe and being able to walk in cities. It must be so surreal that they either have to move, or they can't fathom that these cities are practical to live in.
> traveling to Europe and being able to walk in cities
All of Greece is car oriented. Of course if you stay near Acropolis you get the impression of walk-ability. Spain outside of the historic city centers is car oriented. Average mileage traveled by car per person in Germany is about the same as is in Canada.
I can continue your generalization about my home city - Montreal. Which is walk-able .. but not really, see the second part here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yDtLv-7xZ4
To me, it's a big reason why Americans love Disney World: you can drive to your local airport, fly to Florida, take a shuttle bus to your resort (that handles your luggage for you), and then rely on Disney's private network of bus routes, monorails, gondolas, boats, etc., instead of having to drive yourself.
In fact, if you use their transportation network, you actually get somewhat better treatment: in all of the parks, there's a shorter walk to/from the transit terminal than to your car, and in one of them (Magic Kingdom), you are required to park a distance from the park and take a connecting ferry.
That's what I used to tell my friends in France: "I think Americans see France like a theme park, they really enjoy it but they think it's not possible to live there, they probably just think it's a nice place to visit"
Believe it or not, we do have cities in the US with walkable areas :)
I am in Madison, Wisconsin and we have a number of areas like State Street where walking is the norm: https://visitdowntownmadison.com/
By and large this is not the case but it isn't as if it's unimaginable what it would be like.
I've visited Madison and really liked it, but I wouldn't compare it to the walkability of any European city
New York City at least is extremely walk able/bike able and car unfriendly.
I live in New York as a European and damn, it's very pedestrian unfriendly, you have to cross these large roads everywhere, so much noise pollution, roads are so large. It's still the most pedestrian friendly city in the US, and that's why I'm here, but incomparable with Europe
It's not surreal at all, and most Americans marvel at how tiny and unliveable the houses are.
Europeans must marvel at being able the size of living accommodations in the US. They can not even fathom in their brains what it's like not to be crammed into a tiny 20sqm flat.
I think you're talking about suburbs in the US, I understand you have a lot of space but it seems like a very isolated way of living