[marcus_holmes]

I lived in Berlin for a while. Most people don't own a car in Berlin. Not because of poverty, but because the city is walkable (you can walk from one side to the other in an afternoon, it's a lovely thing to do on a summer's day). Your metric of "own more cars" is not incorrect, just irrelevant. It's like saying that Europeans are wealthier because they are more likely to have a passport.

Likewise for "substantially larger houses". This is just not a relevant metric - Europeans generally live in denser cities, with more apartment living, more cycling, more parks. That's a preference. It's got nothing to do with wealth. Europeans don't have smaller houses because they can't afford them, but because they prefer living in smaller, denser, more walkable cities.

[ty6853]

It's interesting because I have been to many walkable places in southeast Asia with extremely cheap collective taxis, but even then most extended families have a small motorbike so they can visit another village without all the bother of begging/renting/borrowing.

[marcus_holmes]

Yeah, I have lived in SE Asia too, and I think the reason is public transport - in Berlin there are two train systems, trams, and buses. You can get anywhere cheaply, safely, and relatively quickly. In SE Asia there's usually tuk-tuks, sometimes taxis, and that's it. And owning a moped is a lot cheaper than taking a tuk-tuk every time. Owning a car is a lot more expensive than taking the u-bahn every time.

[lurk2]

> It's like saying that Europeans are wealthier because they are more likely to have a passport.

It’s not like that as we were discussing tangible measures of wealth. Can you provide any evidence that Europeans are materially wealthier than Americans? That is, that Europeans earn, own, and / or consume more than Americans?

[neffy]

But I don´t want to "consume" more than Americans. I want to eat healthy food in reasonable quantities and maintain a sensible weight.

I don´t want to own a car and drive 2 hours to work every day, and consume more car ownership - I want to cycle or walk, and stay fit and enjoy the sun.

You see the mistake you're making?

I lived in the US for 6 years, and could have stayed. It was an easy decision to go back to Europe.

[marcus_holmes]

My point was that your metrics (more cars, bigger houses) are as invalid as my metric (more passports) because Europeans have fewer cars and smaller houses as a choice, not because of poverty. Like Americans have fewer passports because they choose not travel internationally, not because they can't afford to.