I'm not saying that Amsterdam was built from scratch, nor that Rome is somewhat so special that you can't apply solutions used elsewhere, but that urban space is an hard requirement and the more dedicated infrastructures you build, the more the value of the area goes up and so we end up with those beautiful walkable, green, neighborhoods in Milan where the "Vertical Forest" is that only the very rich can afford.

And in those parts of the city where space is basically free, people live too far from where they need to go by bike anyway.

It's a cat and mouse game, you need very dense, very small, almost flat cities, to get to the point where Amsterdam is, which is not that typical especially in Europe.