Depends on the city. Sure, some are high rise, which isn’t for some, but they aren’t all like that. London for example is relatively flat but has an excellent public transport system. Same with Paris and Brussels. Essen seamer good while I was there. Utrecht was great. Amsterdam too (but it’s just grim due to all the drug tourists). Most European cities are walkable and have at least a basic level of usable public transport.
NY was the only American city I’ve been to which had a decent transport system I used. Seattle I saw trams but was on business with Texan sales people, trams with out the question. Austin buses felt very much like what only poor people used and walking the 2 miles from the apartment to the office, involved some fence holes and minor trespassing to be even possible. Mostly nice river walk though.
All cities should have decent public transport and be walkable. Car based urban sprawl has got to go. Older, pre-car, cities are often the nicest.
Edit : Wuppertal, that was my German favourite. It’s like an alternative timeline city. Love its "floating tram.
I think the problem is that most European and East coast US cities were built for walking / horses. The western US is entirely built around having a car and much of it is empty. There are massive swaths of land that is too hot for biking and it would be incrediblely expensive to change any of this.
![[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/11c37658-7c32-4cc2-b12c-6ced348bd09d.png){kind=link}
Depends on the city. Sure, some are high rise, which isn’t for some, but they aren’t all like that. London for example is relatively flat but has an excellent public transport system. Same with Paris and Brussels. Essen seamer good while I was there. Utrecht was great. Amsterdam too (but it’s just grim due to all the drug tourists). Most European cities are walkable and have at least a basic level of usable public transport.
NY was the only American city I’ve been to which had a decent transport system I used. Seattle I saw trams but was on business with Texan sales people, trams with out the question. Austin buses felt very much like what only poor people used and walking the 2 miles from the apartment to the office, involved some fence holes and minor trespassing to be even possible. Mostly nice river walk though.
All cities should have decent public transport and be walkable. Car based urban sprawl has got to go. Older, pre-car, cities are often the nicest.
Edit : Wuppertal, that was my German favourite. It’s like an alternative timeline city. Love its "floating tram.
I think the problem is that most European and East coast US cities were built for walking / horses. The western US is entirely built around having a car and much of it is empty. There are massive swaths of land that is too hot for biking and it would be incrediblely expensive to change any of this.