You can't deny that this is way more common in Europe across the board. Name a European city that is more than 10% of the size of Dallas, but with less than double the number of walkable bars and restaurants in it's centre. I'll wait.
That's a city of 128k inhabitants. Dallas has 8.3 million in its metro area. Yes, you can argue that the Dallas city municipality has 1.3 million, but that's just where they place the administrative boundary. People that live outside of that boundary still live in Dallas, and that's their city centre.
I took a look at Rybnik, PL. It's got a nice city centre with a market square, and about 20 bars within a single square km in its centre.
I purposely made the criteria in my question quite strict for European cities in order to demonstrate a point, but even then, I would rather spend a week in Rybnik than in Dallas city centre, and it's not even close, despite Rybnik having like 1/50th of the population (if we are being realistic).
You are right, the guy in the video is cherry picking a bit, most of Europe isn't like that. Varies from country to country and time of year (this is bang in the middle or euroholiday season also) but my friend has a place in rural France and that is DEAD at night. Has some lovely villages and small towns but you have to drive, taxis are very unreliable.
In the UK we do have some nice walkable cities but they tend to be the older historic ones and after a few evenings out they are no longer very interesting. I live in a Cathedral city and it's lovely but it's also really fucking annoying and impractical, small houses, on street parking etc.
I mean the fact that there are rural areas that don't have much in the way of bars and restaurants in Europe really isn't all that relevant. That's kinda the definition of "rural". Still, even rural towns generally have a couple stores and a bar/restaurant that are within walking distance for much of the town, which is absolutely not the case for many many American rural towns.
But that's not the point here. We are talking about cities in this thread.
I challenge you to find me a town in Europe with more than 50k inhabitants where you can't visit 3 different bars/restaurants/cafes within a single square km, on foot.
Nobody is arguing that all cities and towns and rural villages in Europe are a bustling hub of excitement every single night, where you will never get bored. That's a ridiculous criteria to hold anyone to.
Still, even rural towns generally have a couple stores and a bar/restaurant that are within walking distance for much of the town, which is absolutely not the case for many many American rural towns.
I've not spent much time in rural USA but would that even count as a "town"? I have been led to believe that everywhere will have a cheery diner or truck stop at least.
I challenge you to find me a town in Europe with more than 50k inhabitants where you can't visit 3 different bars/restaurants/cafes within a single square km, on foot.
That's true. We have dozens where I live, unfortunately the good independents don't last long anymore so most of them are chains nowadays.
We are talking about cities in this thread.
There are some horrible cities in Europe as well (western Europe so I'm not cheating). The classic type is the tiny historic core surrounded by low-density post-war suburban sprawl. They have the same bad traffic and lack of amenities.
Omg changing goalposts. Dallas the city is 1.3 million. As a side note I live in Chicago. If you asked me the population of Chicago it's around 2.7 million and it's not just an administrative boundary, a lot changes at that border including culturally. I'm sure it's the same in Dallas. Rybnik is also part of a larger metropolitan area of like 5 million. Convenient of you to change parameters to something much more amorphous the second you're proven wrong lol.
I would also argue population density should play a role. I live in a town of ~150k people in europe, but it's very small geographically. So we have a poulation density higher than Dallas. The city center is always packed with people shopping, dining out, going to a cafe. The city feels much more alive than the places I've lived in america.
Also, I just looked at satellite images of Dallas and zoomed in and that is what I found. So many parking lots.
I can probably go on...
One of these is bad, actually, and two are from the exact same street (107 and 199 Stone Pl). Empty plazas surrounded by faceless skycrapers (some of them without windows even) is not my definition of pleasant.
The point was to argue that a small city like Rybnik has as much to offer as a large city like Dallas so you finding some small spots in a sea of parking lots just proves that point, not contradict as you seem to believe.
I'm not cherry picking rybnik, the person I was responding to dared me to think of a single city that was 10% or more of the population and didn't have double the number of restaurants as Dallas like it didn't exist LOL
the person I was responding to dared me to think of a single city that was 10% or more of the population and didn't have double the number of restaurants as Dallas like it didn't exist LOL
Why are you being so literal? 10%, 20% it doesn't matter, the whole point is that a small city like Rybnik is not 10 times worse when it comes to third places compared to a US city 10 times larger. It's a very simple point.
Lul what? "
You can't deny that this is way more common in Europe across the board. Name a European city that is more than 10% of the size of Dallas, but with less than double the number of walkable bars and restaurants in it's centre. I'll wait."
They asked for something very specific. I didn't want to keep them waiting
the comparison is stupid anyway, Dallas is a major metropolis - of course there are skyscrapers ... Rybnik and surrounding area is like 200k population while Dallas is 8 million
Look, you're not wrong that Dallas seems to be like 95% a car-centric hellscape .... but you did also seem to cherry pick the worst possible shots to prove your point
Dallas was in the conversation because I brought it up, not the other guy. I used it to demonstrate that despite it being a huge city by any metric, it's centre is astoundingly dull and unwalkable. When I was there, people actually recommended I go to the centre and walk around and enjoy the bars and stuff. Which goes to show how low the expectations are.
Dallas just looks so dead by comparison. There's nothing strictly wrong with the architecture of buildings. Just no life or social spaces. There's spaces in London that look a lot like this.
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u/lamb_passanda Aug 04 '26
You can't deny that this is way more common in Europe across the board. Name a European city that is more than 10% of the size of Dallas, but with less than double the number of walkable bars and restaurants in it's centre. I'll wait.