There is another practical reality that separates the US from Europe specifically with respect to walkability. The US has much more extreme weather in many places. What would be called severe heat or cold in much of Europe, which I've suffered through for the week if need be, is normal weather in many parts of the US for several months on end. You need alternative transportation for those extended periods.
Few people enjoy being outside in a tropical swamp with a double-digit UV index. Same with the extreme cold that you get in the central US far from the ocean.
I live in Seattle, where many people walk everywhere all year (myself included), no car needed. But that is because the weather is perfect for that kind of thing, being 5-25°C with limited precipitation virtually the entire year. If I lived in Houston, for example, I would be driving in the summer regardless of how walkable the city is.
Europe also spans some extreme weather, from the frozen North to the scorching hot Meditarranean.
I am from Spain, where 40ºC in summer is normal but winters are mild. I have friends and colleagues from Finland and Latvia, which are pretty much the opposite. And yet all our countries are walkable.
And like in the US, population is mostly concentrated in the spots where it's not that extreme, so that's where most people are/would be able to benefit from human-centred urban design.
And yet Seattle has very few pedestrianized spaces for the size of the city. It’s as car dominated and sprawling as any major North American city.
Difficult to call it sprawling given the geography, and I don't know what "pedestrianized" even means here since walking in many neighborhoods is both common and designed for.
There is plenty of accommodation for vehicles in Seattle, that is true. Even people that walk everywhere often own one in order to take advantage of the prodigious outdoor activities for which the region is famous.
It’s definitely very sprawling from Olympia to Mt Vernon. We only just managed to pedestrianize Pike Place Market. I struggle to think of a pedestrian neighborhood. Just cuz you can walk doesn’t rise to that level. Ballard no. It’s all cars and car parks. Fremont no. U district no. Cap Hill no. Queen Anne no. West Seattle no. They’re all car dominated neighborhoods without much pedestrian space and poor accommodation for cycling too.
Olympia and Mt Vernon are not part of Seattle. Does anyone think Segovia and Toledo are part of Madrid?
It definitely is sprawling compared to your typical European city.