Many cities in America made the dubious decision during the 20th century of erecting freeways that bisect cities, further reducing space designed for pedestrians.
By contrast, the majority of European cities were not only built long before the automobile but additionally, their central business districts didn’t change as much – or at all – to accommodate freeways.
In Europe, gasoline prices are much higher because, unlike in the United States, many countries there don’t subsidize fuel. Hence transit remains an attractive option, with rail stations and trams situated in central business districts and linked to public squares.
The primacy of a central meeting space can be traced to the Greek Empire with the agora, among other forerunners. That concept endured, and during the Roman Empire, for example, officials required that the military lay out a new town or city around a central rectangular space, Dunham-Jones said.
“Italy and Spain really reflect that history of the Roman Empire,” Dunham-Jones said.
And it’s why Santa Fe and St. Augustine – two cities in states not known for walkable urbanism – retain focal public squares. They were built by Europeans – the Spanish colonizers.
But it’s not all ancient history that explains the piazza discrepancy. After World War II, America set out to chart its own future, without relying on Europe as the example, and be a beacon for modern life. The future didn’t look like old, cramped industrial cities. Indeed, a signature look emerged amid postwar prosperity.
“Having a yard and a car became the epitome of the good life, of modern living,” Dunham-Jones said.
In the postwar period, the United States spent billions of dollars on roads while other countries spent billions on high-speed rail to link big cities. Even though Amtrak’s high-speed line Acela recently introduced a new train with a maximum speed of 160 mph, the outdated rail infrastructure in the US means those speeds will rarely be reached, as CNN reported recently. High-speed rail in Asia and Europe can average up to 197 mph and 169 mph, respectively.
What followed World War II was a long slide toward suburban sprawl. Municipal requirements emerged in many places that forced developers to incorporate parking into all new projects.
American cities are full of parking lots and garages, which Atlanta web developer Darin Givens calls “dead space.” Four years ago, he visited Brussels where the Grand Place made a huge impression. Givens said he didn’t know “just how magical it was going to feel” to be there in person, surrounded by other pedestrians.
“We walked into it in the evening, and it felt like Christmas even though it wasn’t – just how beautiful the lighting was” from the illuminated buildings and outdoor tables spilling into the square, said Givens.
Givens lives in the city of Atlanta, which affords him a taste of the urban bustle he found in Brussels. But it’s also a city bisected by highways and streets designed mainly for car traffic.
“There’s nothing like the Grand Place anywhere within walking distance of where I live,” he said. “We live on a pretty busy road and people drive very fast.”
If you ever question “Why do Americans do X?” or “Why don’t Americans have X?”
The answer is always capitalism.
What people don’t understand about America is that it is, and has always been, the world’s most successful mafia/extortion scheme that holds its working class hostage. The working class in America is quite simply living livestock.
Imagine a cow you can rip the meat out of, it feels the pain of you doing so, but it doesn’t die. Instead it slowly regenerates some (albeit less and less) meat over time, until it eventually can’t and will die. That’s the American working class. And when the butcher runs out of meat, he’ll move elsewhere with another cow and repeat.
The legacy of a country founded on racial chattel slavery, and the hierarchy of races established to justify it (i.e. the concept of “whiteness”). They’re not going to build squares for people they regard as inferior, especially after “white” people retreated to defensible single-family homes in car-dependent suburbs (often with low overpasses on access roads to block access to minority-carrying buses, as per Robert Moses), and punching freeways for white-flight commuters through minority neighbourhoods has the side effect of destroying minority prosperity and manufacturing the “truth” that Those People are too lazy/unintelligent/feckless to be regarded as equals.
Why is no other commentator mentioning the racist elephant in the room? Thank you.
This is the only correct answer. The other comments are surprisingly pretty ignorant about this issue. Thanks for telling the truth.
It would give people joy for free. We can’t have that. They might spend fewer credits on dopamine capsules, and then Dopamine Corp would have slower growth next quarter.
Car propaganda and lobbying
They don’t build towns/cities like the rest of the world, they build roads and try to fit shit around them (then knock stuff down again to widen the road). If you approach urban planning like that, the closest to a town square you’re getting is a car park
You do not necessarily end up with good squares by not doing that either. Just look at modern Chinese planning. A grid of large roads, but with large blocks, which then are filled with rows of high rises. The blocks are quite walkable and large enough to offer basic services to its residents, but you just do not end up with nice public squares that way.
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They, or at least half of them, keep claiming they aren’t, so who are we to say otherwise?
FWIW even back then it was only about a third of people, there was a big contingent who didn’t vote.
Another case of a minority group of malignant knobs drags the majority of people though yet another destructive right wing policy that’ll take decades to fix.
Famous (though likely apocryphal) UK headline: FOG ON CHANNEL, EUROPE CUT OFF.
Our citities were built for cars first and foremost not happiness or enjoyment of life. Hope that helps :)
If you’d be so kind, please understand that America is an empire with totalitarian leanings and a democracy that literally serves moneyed interests first, as a matter of legislation. Corporations are legally people, and their money is protected speech.
The question you are not asking is, why don’t Americans go on a general strike, or overthrow their oppressors, peacefully or otherwise? I was unable to answer, so I left. It’s insane what my countrymen will tolerate.
