Part of it is funding. Highways are for the most part federally funded, and the feds can print money at will. Urban roads have to be repaired from the city budget, and user fees (fuel taxes) are nowhere near enough to keep them maintained properly.

I thought the feds pay a large portion of construction but the states pay most of the maintenance. some states clearly do a worse job of highway maintenance than others. it's like night and day crossing the MD/PA border on I-95.