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Comment by ccktlmazeltov | Hacker News Reader

I don't see how, I would say most of the decisions that were made in the US are. Cities in the US are not "vibrant" compared to Europe.

I think cars are mostly to blame, roads are so large, no pedestrian-only streets, parkings take so much space, etc.

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That's all Robert Moses' doing. He was the great champion of bulldozing neighborhoods and downtowns to replace them with highways, and eliminating trains, busses, streetcars, and bike lanes to fill the sides of every road with free street parking. He had governments of all parties convinced of his utopian vision of soaring highways and personal rapid transit as depicted on automobile ads and sci fi comics.

I actually prefer the vastness of space in the US. Just go out in the American country side and there is so much beauty. I would love to see a world where the idea of a city is obsolete, distributed local communities of 2000 people spread across the span of American wilderness. Basic services such as electricity, sewage and internet are all maintained by standards set by the state authorities, but run by locals. It all sounds too hipster, but it is not. This COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot about how we can survive as a distributed species as compared to dense city life.

Europe has no such luxury due to the density of people cramped in tight corridors and old (but beautiful) architecture. There it makes sense to have a well organized city life.

IMO city life is overrated but that's just my opinion/perspective of society.

You've invented small towns. What prevents you from moving to one post-pandemic?

> Just go out in the American country side and there is so much beauty

did you think the rest of the world didn't have that?

> Europe has no such luxury due to the density of people cramped in tight corridors and old (but beautiful) architecture. There it makes sense to have a well organized city life.

Come visit the countryside in Europe.

Bonus: if you don't want to live in the city (due to work) you can work outside of it and use public transport!

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