I'm actually curious - have you spent time in cities like Bern or Bilbao? I think urbanism's been a hard sell in the US because we don't really have a lot of great examples of it - New York's maybe the closest we've got to a European style city, but that's only in certain places and it's still a bit much. I was in Europe last year and I was surprised how calm some of the cities were - green, walkable, a lot of nice cafes and parks, good public transit, and it never really felt overwhelming the way that, say, Chicago or LA does. I grew up in the suburbs, and I felt like some of the smaller European cities delivered the suburban sales pitch better than a lot of places I've been in the US.

(Don't take this as an attack or critique - genuine curiosity.)