[alphapapa]

The only parts of cities like that that are actually "designed" are the downtown and a few special developments. The rest just grows as people move and buy land and open businesses.

Most people drive cars, and most people prefer having some room to breathe, and there's no shortage of space, so lots are made big enough to have parking and empty space, etc.

There's not some kind of anti-walking design conspiracy here.

[TulliusCicero]

This is incorrect. American cities are usually designed around car dominance, at the expense of walking. Examples include:

- Primary metric for road design and evaluation being "level of service", which means "how many cars can move through here in a given period of time". Pedestrians are second-class citizens.

- Minimum parking requirements subsidize car use and make urban environments pedestrian-unfriendly by spreading out points of interest.

- Zoning regulations mandating that most of a city's residential area consist of detached single-family homes on large lots, mixed-use generally limited or non-existent.

- Under-investment in transit (transit use is generally paired with walking at the start and end).

- Freeways running all the way into and through cities split urban areas into sections that are difficult to navigate between by walking.

I could go on and on about how American cities are hostile to walking, but that covers some of the big ones. It's true that these decisions have or had popular support, so it's not a conspiracy, but it was certainly designed.