[zanny]

It's worth mentioning most European cities didn't skip cars entirely. Amsterdam in the 70s was as much a traffic sewer as Detroit. They just realized they fucked up in the 80s and spent 30+ years correcting course.

Most rebuilt postwar European cities were built for cars. Then the people realized that sucked, often quicker cuz their legs y built environments accommodated cars poorly, and instead we got effective metro systems instead.

[alwayslikethis]

They never built the sprawling suburbia that much of the US has now though. Public transit remains viable in places built for humans even if it gets colonized by cars for a few decades. Low density suburbs with winding roads doesn't allow for non car transportation to be viable.

[Moldoteck]

Even this can be fixed by increasing supply of good housing in the city and reducing parking, the problem is it's not in their priority

[VHRanger]

Exactly, cities like Rotterdamn and Berlin were flattened in WWII. They're still much better to live in without a car than any American city except NYC and maybe Montreal.

The excuse that postwar development is the reason for car dependency in north america doesn't hold water.