[throwaway6556]

Where do you live?

I've never been to the US so my mental picture of it (which Google Maps seems to confirm) is 99% extremely wide roads, not European-style walkable at all.

So I think, I could never move there (I can't drive a car) and places where I wouldn't need a car are to expensive to live in (NY, Washington).

Are there many Londons in the US?

EDIT: oh, it's Boston.

[oftenwrong]

Yes, it is Boston. Most American cities are sparse and have wide roads and are not compatible with walking as a form of transportation. Boston included. Boston is one of the older cities in the country, so it retains some of the European-style walkability in a select few areas, like Beacon Hill, which is the neighbourhood in the picturesque street photo. There used to be more neighbourhoods like that in American cities, but they were destroyed after the second world war for "urban renewal"/"slum clearance" - to drive out the poor and minorites, and to build car-oriented neighborhoods and highways.

The destruction of Boston's old West End neighbourhood is an infamous example: http://www.bostonstreetcars.com/the-west-ends-transformation...

Here's before and after of Hastings Street and the surrounding area n Detroit: https://detroitenvironment.lsa.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/...

The surviving walkable neighbourhoods like Beacon Hill in Boston and Greenwich Village in New York (which was almost destroyed to build a highway) are now some of the most desired in the country. You would think people would want to build more neighbourhoods like these, but it is actually illegal due to car-friendly zoning codes, and politically impossible, and quite unpopular - car dependence is all many people have ever known, and a dense neighbourhood without copious free parking and wide roads is seen almost as a personal attack on our way of life.

[throwaway6556]

Thanks a lot for this. I wonder what it'd take for the tide to turn against cars. That picture is depressing.