Why American Cities Suck

(And Why They Don’t Have To)

By guest contributor Benjamin Randall.

Growing up, my whole experience of city life consisted of living in places clogged with cars, strip malls, and endless parking lots. Want to go to school? You hopped in a car. Want to go to the grocery store? You hopped in a car. Want to go to your friend’s house? You hopped in a car. In hindsight, all this seems tedious. Why is everything so spread apart? Not all cities are like this, of course, but this is especially true of most American cities.

Looking back, even as a child, I always enjoyed going downtown. Not just downtown Kennewick, but really any downtown. I couldn’t articulate why at that point; I just found the setting “right.” I consider myself well-traveled. I am fortunate enough to have traveled through much of the United States in my heretofore-short time on Earth. One thing I’ve noticed throughout my travels is the utter amount of “sameness” in most cities. Take, for instance, Dallas, Texas:

or Bellevue, Washington:

or even Los Angeles, California:

What do you notice? Can you even tell which city is which? They all have the same roads, the same businesses, and there’s absolutely nothing that distinguishes these cities from each other.

During my travels, I have been privileged to visit many cities that predate the invention of the automobile. Places like Boston, Massachusetts, Montpelier, Vermont, and Portland, Oregon. All these places, particularly the downtowns, had a lively ecosystem. The streets teemed with people. This was a place where people lived, worked, and communed with each other. To put it succinctly, these were LIVING cities.

I never really made a connection as to WHY these cities were so lively. I didn’t understand urban planning. Call it a stroke of YouTube Algorithmic luck, but a few years ago I came across a YouTube channel called “Not Just Bikes” run by Jason Slaughter.

If I were to give you an elevator pitch, Jason’s channel focuses on urban planning and the importance of walkable cities. He offered the Orange Pill, and I took it. I discovered how car dependency is ruining our cities, and the importance of mixed, densely populated communities. Understanding these issues helped me connect the dots for why American cities are totally unlivable. Here is his most popular video:

Today’s cities were not built for the car. A look back into history reveals that most cities were built on a human scale. Cities were lively places where one’s basic needs were all within walking distance, and if anything wasn’t within walking distance, there was a tram or a train to get there. No, these cities were BULLDOZED for the car.

Before and after the construction of I-75 In Cincinnati, Ohio. Whole communities were displaced to create the Interstate.

It should come as no surprise that the likes of General Motors even conspired to get rid of tram networks in lieu of buses. But that is a story for another article.

But then there’s the question of why so many of us use cars in the first place. There are other viable alternatives, aren’t there? It’s not that we all love driving so much; for most of us, it is the ONLY option. By making car-centric infrastructure, you create a vicious cycle where you need a car to get places, and because places are far away, you need a car, and because you need a car to get to places, it’s impossible to use any other means to get to those places, except for a car. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To make matters worse, all this has been enshrined into law. It was all by design. It was all deliberately done. We made a choice to do this. We don’t have to do this. Fortunately, we can change things, IF WE WANT TO.

I can already hear those in the comments accusing me of being anti-car, and before I go too far, I want to make it clear that the problem isn’t cars, but car dependency. You shouldn’t have to walk everywhere, nor should you have to use the train to get everywhere; and just so, you shouldn’t be forced to use a car to get everywhere. Cars are a fantastic utility, and in many places, such as in rural areas, it is the best option available. But that doesn’t mean that we should base our whole infrastructure system on it. An ideal city offers many transportation options. I will go into these options later.

I didn’t want to end this article on a sour note. I’m not one to rail endlessly against something and offer no solutions. So, to wrap this up, I want to look at Amsterdam as a case study for the road forward. I have never been to the Netherlands, but I’ve observed enough to recognize that they’re on the right path to create truly great cities.

You wouldn’t recognize it now, but Amsterdam wasn’t always the Ville idéale. Much like the United States, the Netherlands transformed much of their country to become car-friendly after World War II. According to Jason Slaughter, Amsterdam by the 1970s had become a car-infested hellhole. Urban planners from the U.S. came to Amsterdam and had plans for building American-style highways. These plans involved the demolishing of countless neighborhoods to make way for these highways. Fortunately, these plans were scrapped due to mass protests. Unfortunately, while the highways were scrapped, much of the urban interface wasn’t spared from American-style urban planning.

The protests did have a lasting effect, however. Since the ’70s, Amsterdam has maintained course towards reversing the damaged they caused. This has been facilitated through transforming automobile infrastructure into spaces more friendly towards walking and cycling, and that’s without mentioning the high emphasis on expanding the rail network.

Amsterdam learned its lesson, and so can we. Of course, Amsterdam didn’t become a world-class city overnight. It took considerable pressure in the correct direction to steer it to where it is now. But now knowing the problems, where should we direct this pressure? I think the practicable action someone can do is to make his voice heard before his local government. City council meetings are almost always sparsely attended, so any input is a lot of input. Strong Towns, a nonprofit urban planning advocacy organization, is a great organization to get involved with. The resources they have available are indispensable. We can build walkable cities. We’ve built them for thousands of years, and we can do it again.

In my next article, I will be reviewing how urban sprawl financially ruins communities, and how densifying cities can help solve this problem.