USA cities are low density because they are road–focused

The United States emerged during a period of abundant frontier land, which normalized the idea that ordinary people could own large, independent plots. This contrasted sharply with Europe’s older, land-constrained settlement patterns. That early culture of space and ownership later interacted with industrialization, the automobile, and government policy to produce the low-density development that characterizes much of the U.S. today.

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dayjaby 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Another interesting fact about plot sizes in Europe: You can see within an area which kind of inheritance law was in place: If farming plots are large, usually the oldest son inherited everything. If they are small, they were evenly distributed.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026483772...

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gwbas1c 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When you go into the Northeast, a lot of narrower roads were planned for slow-moving horse-drawn carts.

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rzwitserloot 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The vast, _vast_ majority of such infrastructure was turn down in the 60s to make way for the almighty automobile.

The number of places in the north american continent that retain their street focused infrastructure is pretty much countable on one hand, and most of that is being terribly managed.

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exhumet 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly go Worcester, Providence and Boston and be in awe at how fucking horrendous the maze is.

	▲	bakies 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Boston is only horrendous in a car. Walking around and taking public transit in Boston is very nice. OTOH Providence feels like it's designed for cars, much easier to drive there but always need the car around and their highways and roads are terrible. There's a ton of highway to split the city. Worcester is less highway constricted but still definitely need a car to get around and I still can't figure my way around.

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hollerith 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Horse-drawn carts are not any narrower than cars are, and many place (e.g., the Marina District of San Francisco) designed in the horse era have very wide streets.

	▲	gwbas1c 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Pretty much any car that's bigger than a subcompact is wider than a horse drawn cart.