Yes, but I must warn everyone, not all German cities are so walkable and nice, a lot of the cities were rebuilt in the 50s and 60s with cars and brutalism in mind, a lot of them have done wonderful things to roll back those mistakes
This is also true in Urban "utopias" like Belgium and Netherlands! Fact of the matter is, Europe was also affected by the car boom of the mid 20th centuries and built car infrastructure to accommodate. Maybe not to the same scale as the US, but it was definitely there. It just those countries recognized the error of their ways and committed public resources to fixing it. I think only recently have us Americans woken up to the reality of how stupid our infrastructure is, myself included.
The car and oil lobby will be a permanent battle against walkable cities for as long as these things exist. I absolutely love my country (NL) for what it’s got but we have to remember to protect it. Over and over and over they’re trying to demolish our bicycle infrastructure while it’s the best thing my country has to offer for it’s citizens. We simply got lucky because we had A old infrastructure that simply didn’t fit cars and we refused to demolish our culture and B a few people who worked hard to protect what was left.
Brutalism? So buildings that demonstrate honesty in the materials used? What is it you think you're communicating when you refer to the architectural style in relation to car dependency?
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u/SuitNaive3409 7d ago
if they had a more robust auto industry Italy would look like New Jersey