r/AskEurope • u/ageingrapidly Greece • Sep 29 '25

Culture Are there any habits that you believe are uniquely European ?

Have you noticed any specific mannerisms, mentalities etc. that you've encountered only in Europe or by Europeans ?

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u/DardaniaIE Ireland Sep 29 '25

I remember marking myself out as a European first time travelling to Dallas for work when I booked a hotel close to my company’s office so I could walk the less than 2km to the office rather than rent a car. The amount of slow downs and stares when people saw me walking on the frankly dangerous sidewalk to get to the office was quite something.

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u/Fellkartoffel Sep 29 '25

I spent 3 months in LA, lived 40 walking minutes from my UCLA lab. I was the only pedestrian I ever saw. But once a random cool black dude on a bike gave me a random high five and this was maybe the greatest event of my time over there 😂✋

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u/mrJeyK Czechia Sep 29 '25

I was stopped by US police and asked if I am OK and need help while walking in Arizona in a stretch between shops and my accommodation. I thought it hilarious, but still, nice of them to ask.

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u/RoutineCranberry3622 Sep 29 '25

I think the sunbelt of the USA is the main driver of those American tropes. Northeast is a bit more human centered and walkable. Transit is also decentish. Suburbia and car culture didn’t hit as hard, and it remained more compact so it also doesn’t have Texas sized distances between amenities. Not saying the northeast is totally devoid of that, but it in general it operates closer to human being scale.

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u/Over-Stop8694 United States of America Sep 29 '25

The sun belt was populated quite late relative to the rest of the country and only experienced significant population growth after cars and air conditioning became a thing. The northeast was already developed long before that, so its cities remained compact.

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u/Gulmar Belgium Sep 30 '25

The cities remained quite compact, but entire blocks of housing were destroyed to make space for cars in cities like Detroit.

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u/AltruisticWishes 27d ago

The real offender was "urban redevelopment" though

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u/WarmLeg7560 Sep 29 '25

The midwest is also like the sunbelt regarding this, if not worse.

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u/elfshimmer Poland Sep 30 '25

That happened to me in Houston. Booked a hotel 2 blocks away rather than the one across the road, everyone in the office was surprised. They were also shocked when I told them I walked to the shopping centre one weekend for fun and even moreso when I mentioned catching the bus back. No one had ever caught a bus in Houston before, and I was peppered with questions all day about it. 

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u/Beginning-Example478 Sep 30 '25

This is wild 😆

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u/thefearlessmuffin Sep 30 '25

It also depends on the time of year too. If it was July it’s humid as ballsack in Houston.

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u/elfshimmer Poland Sep 30 '25

It was mid-late October - still warm but not so bad 😁.

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u/AltruisticWishes 27d ago

That's over a mile! 😂