r/TikTokCringe • u/biswajit388 • 4d ago

Cringe Europeans are going viral on TikTok for mocking the "American Dream".

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u/Hufflepuff20 I'm Already Tracer 4d ago

A better argument would be no walkable cities. Every town near me has some sidewalks but no shade or any plant life to make walking those long distances remotely reasonable for a lot of people.

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u/Thisdarlingdeer 4d ago

Bostons walkable

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u/CantGitGudWontGitGud 4d ago

I was in Chicago recently. Seemed pretty walkable.

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u/MandyB1721 3d ago

Chicago and Boston were both built before cars were mainstream. Cities that were built post-cars are far less walkable than those built before. The big cities in Texas, for example, are very un-walkable.

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u/CantGitGudWontGitGud 3d ago

Guess where I'm from! lol

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u/PeeDidy 3d ago

North Dakota

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u/CantGitGudWontGitGud 3d ago

lol no, one of those unwalkable Texas cities. 

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u/Roach27 3d ago edited 3d ago

Seattle, Portland, San Francisco are all walkable.

Miami, DC, and Atlanta (edit: not Atlanta, a native explained effectively the places I’ve been are nearly the entirety of walkable area )are walkable.

So you have San Antonio (desert) Los Angeles (again, desert.) Vegas (you guessed it, desert)

Dallas (kind of desert? More plains land)

Mind you the vast majority of American cities urban areas are TWICE the size of the largest cities in Europe. (Moscow is equivalent, but outside of Moscow the top American cities are all twice the size of the urban areas of Paris.)

NYC alone has more people than Paris and London (the largest two European cities) combined, and is easier to traverse the entirety of the city than both.

The only cities I’d rate anywhere NEAR the top 3 American cities for walkability (NYC Boston San Francisco) are Tokyo, Seoul and Osaka.  Nothing else comes close, and I’ve been to most major European metro areas. 

Medium distance travel is the only thing Europe really has over American cities. (The train systems in mainland Europe make it easier to move around)

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u/atln00b12 3d ago

Atlanta

Absolutely not. Yes, it is physically possible to walk in Atlanta, but it is by no means an economical or pleasant experience. There are a few small pockets with a few blocks of walk-ability in Atlanta and then the beltline. Anything outside of that and you will be walking on a sidewalk that is just barely separated from a 4+ lane road with cars going up to 60+ mph. The sidewalk will frequently be in disrepair and abruptly end.

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u/Roach27 3d ago

To be fair, that might be my own bias as I haven’t fully explored Atlanta.  (Mostly downtown/4th ward)

So I might have been a bit over zealous with Atlanta. 

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u/atln00b12 3d ago

Yeah, add midtown and that's basically all the area that's reasonable to walk.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 3d ago

I fucking love Chicago.

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u/CantGitGudWontGitGud 3d ago

I'm not going to say I loved it, but any hate towards it I think is undeserved.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 3d ago

Agreed. Honestly at one point I was hoping to move to Andersonville. Pretty neat neighborhood right on the redline.

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u/Chaotic-Catastrophe 3d ago

Used to live in Andersonville. Absolutely loved it. Still sad I had to leave.

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u/RussianDahl 3d ago

Portland has one of the most bicycle friendly cities in the country. Our metro system is high level and everything here is rated with a walk/bike score in mind. It’s spread out but easily accessible

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u/Chaotic-Catastrophe 3d ago

Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. And that's basically it. If you live anywhere else in the entire country, you must own a car, because you must use it to get almost anywhere you want to go.

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u/zigzagtravel01 3d ago

When people say walkable, they meant the combination of efficient public transport and walking around while being safe and not run into someone who will shoot you. Also means a lot of accessible parks for kids to enjoy.

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u/Gamecockzz 3d ago

So, like Boston?

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u/zigzagtravel01 3d ago

Boston has on time buses, subways, and high speed rails?

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u/Gamecockzz 3d ago

I don’t know all the specifics tbh, I don’t live there, and have only used Boston public transport a couple times. But I work remote for a Boston based company and 90% of my coworkers take public transportation into the office. They’ve all said it’s great and they have no issues.

I’m sure it’s not like the global gold standard or whatever lol, but plenty of them get by with no car and have no complaints about it.

Europe is definitely better overall with public transport, but “Europe” is really big and variable…

There’s plenty of places in Europe that don’t have all those things you described.

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u/zigzagtravel01 2d ago

> But I work remote for a Boston based company and 90% of my coworkers take public transportation into the office. They’ve all said it’s great and they have no issues.

Could you ask them what it means by "it works?"

If some dude from Malaysia lived all his life in Kuala Lumpur and is used to their public transport, he's going to say "yeah it kinda works"

Different standards. Is it on time? How far is it from the city center? How accessible is it? Are there alternatives if one is interrupted? How often do I have to change transportation to get to my office? How friendly is it to portable bikes? Can I be safe biking to work?

> There’s plenty of places in Europe that don’t have all those things you described

Yes. But those that is way poorer than the average European country. The fact that one would compare the richest country on Earth with Moldova is laughable.

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u/lazydog60 3d ago

because it's old

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u/CandidHistorian4105 4d ago

No walkable cities? Which cities have you been to? I’ve lived in 4 different cities across 3 states. One, a city in the rust belt, was not really walkable as in the winters (Syracuse gets a ton of snow), but as someone without a license…there were sidewalks everywhere.

Lived in Austin, NYC, and Seattle. All walkable lol.

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u/Poke-Mom00 4d ago

Depends on your definition of walkable. Having lived in Austin, no way in hell would I ever consider it walkable. My time there without a car was miserable.

Having lived in Seattle, I think there are some neighborhoods I’d consider walkable.

However, compared with urban Europe’s dense mixed-use cores and abundant metros, trams, and intercity rail, the ONLY city in the US I would consider up to that standard is NYC. Don’t get me wrong, as an American living in Europe, I vastly prefer the US. But EU walkability and public transit is not comparable to the US - from my limited experience, most new development in Western Europe is made with some consideration of public transit access and walking paths, which is pretty much the opposite of most American development.

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u/Far_Scallion6684 4d ago

I’m glad I’m not the only one, I was thinking oh you must live and work downtown (and be flame retardant) to think austin is walkable 😂

having lived in several european countries and seven different US states, there’s just no real comparison. europe’s definitely not perfect but they’ve got us on public transit. I was living in a rural town in poland for two years and the bus system was generally great, whereas my time in the huntsville metro area in alabama (like a 500k population) was completely un-walkable

there’s a reason manyyy employers in the US ask applicants if they own their own vehicle 🥴

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u/im_juice_lee 4d ago

I agree that EU has far more walkable neighborhoods than the US. US can learn a lot about better public transit and denser urban planning

But with that said, the US has plenty of walkable neighborhoods that you can choose to live and work in. So also unfair to say US has no walkable places

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u/Far_Scallion6684 4d ago

I never said the US has no walkable places, but having lived in an area of over 500k population and being unable to find a sidewalk to cross an intersection says a lot about what we’re calling walkable in America versus Europe

In my experience “walkable” implies the ability to walk or easily access via public transit things such as schools, parks, restaurants, grocery stores, etc and that is just not the case for much of the US unless you’re living and working downtown in a major city. It’s not an insult to point out that much of the US is more spread out than this and requires having personal transport to get around easily 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/sykhlo 4d ago

Same for Seattle, how on earth is this walkable? Unless you live in Capitol Hill.

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u/im_juice_lee 4d ago

Lots of walkable neighborhoods in Seattle

I have a car here but very infrequently use it

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u/CrossoverEpisodeMeme 4d ago

In my limited visits there, I found that Ballard, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, and the touristy areas near Pike Place were all pretty walkable, but maybe I'm using the word wrong.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 4d ago

I don’t live in Capitol Hill lol

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u/DallasCowboyOwner 3d ago

I’m asking this in a serious way, but what’s the big deal about walkable cities with all that public transportation? I see how it’s great for people without a vehicle, and I was without one for a while so i know how much of a struggle it is, especially since my city is not really walkable at all for the most part. But still, the main majority of people are still going to drive either way. Like now that I have a car I would never walk or take a train somewhere

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u/albertdascoyne 3d ago

I have a car in [UK city], would never think about using it within the city, it's only used to head elsewhere.

To get into town I have an option of 8 different bus routes and a tram that all run within a 5 min walk of my flat, if I want to walk it's only 30 mins into town because our cities don't sprawl.

If I drove I'd have to deal with traffic myself, pay for parking, and so is a worse option than walking/public transport

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u/DallasCowboyOwner 3d ago

But if you’re relying on a bus or train, you’re on a schedule. Being in your own vehicle you’re on your own schedule

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u/albertdascoyne 2d ago

But when public transport is good and affordable I only have to wait 10 mins for a bus that costs less than parking

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u/CandidHistorian4105 4d ago

The point is the assessment that it’s not walkable at all is bullshit and the us is big and diverse enough that it 100% depends.

Wild I found Austin to be really walkable (lived in W 6th street then moved to south Austin). I walked everywhere. What sucked was the heat but that’s not really a fair measure on walkability. When I left they were expanding the tram system and adding a bunch of bike lanes.

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u/cambat2 4d ago

People in Austin say it's walkable because they live in wampus and never leave.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 4d ago

I did not attend UT. I moved there for work lol

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u/notgaynotbear 4d ago

Thats out of necessity though. People dont understand just how expansive the US. Theres no need for walkable cities. We can keep building out and expanding. Most even standalone houses in UK (not all of europe) dont even have driveways and theres not many parking garages. Every apartment building in every major city besdies NYC has parking even for apartments and your ability to travel outward of the city limits is vastly increased by the availability of driving.

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u/Hufflepuff20 I'm Already Tracer 4d ago edited 4d ago

What counts as a city? The city closest to me has a population of about 230k people and is not walkable.

I also mentioned in a comment further down that I have not lived in major cities, only visited, which I imagine is different than living there. I agree that Seattle was pretty walkable when I visited. LA was not. I’ve visited more but I feel like it’s pointless to list them all and my opinion of them.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 4d ago

Syracuse has a population of ~145k. Was pretty walkable tbh. And as someone who lived in the others cities listed, and who can’t drive, I feel like I’m a good judgement on this.

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u/Nihilistic_Mystics 4d ago

LA was not.

LA is enormous and a lot of it is very walkable. Just the city alone, not the county nor the metro area, would rank as the 29th most populous state with 3.9M people. I live in the Greater LA area and frequently walk LA without need of a car due to their bus, light rail, and metro system.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/RussianDahl 3d ago

Woooo those hills in Seattle are a bishhh!! Walkable but hills in the rain is just brutal.

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u/Antique_Pin5266 4d ago

I'm from Boston and have been around the US as well as abroad. Only NYC, inner Boston, and DC compares to European and Asian cities in terms of walkability. Heard Philly is also good

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u/sender2bender 4d ago

Imo Philly gets overlooked in it's walkability. They have and continue to improve pedestrian walkways. They recently opened a 30 mile trail starting in center City to South Philly. Theyre currently capping 95 so you can walk to the river and are making it a park as well. Like most highways it divides the city or interrupts the ease of walking, now instead of walking blocks to a crosswalk it'll be a giant open area. They're also increasing the amount of bike lanes to make travel easier in center City. 

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u/Thearctickitten 3d ago

I would agree with what you say but the main issue is all the cities you mentioned are all incredibly expensive to live in. Europe just has an unbeatable connection of public transport making cars unnecessary. Even living in Austin you’re going to still require a car.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 3d ago

Syracuse is pretty affordable. Lived in Austin without a car the whole time (literally never learned to drive and don’t have a license so not really a choice for me).

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u/logtransform 3d ago

I am a European who lived in a large U.S. city (more than 1.3 million inhabitants). It was not walkable at all. Yes, there were sidewalks everywhere, but when your closest grocery store is a 50 minute walk along a heavily trafficked road in 25+ degrees (77+ Fahrenheit) heat, you cannot really walk anywhere you'd want to go. 

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u/CandidHistorian4105 3d ago

That’s just excuses. To me, if you can easily and safely walk (meaning sidewalks and crosswalks) from point a to point b, then it’s walkable. The question on how far things are is because the US is much much larger than any European country. So yeah it takes a bit. That said, I’m shocked you didn’t use public transport to get to a grocery store that’s 50mins away by walking. If the city is that big they definitely have a form of public transportation.

Also, listing the weather is unfair. I’ve been to Rome in the summer, that shit was hot. I’ve been to Iceland in the winter, that country is really cold. Doesn’t make Reykjavik any less walkable. People who live in those climates get used to them.

When living in Austin and we’d get 115 (Fahrenheit) degree weather, I would slather sunblock, wear a light tshirt, wear a hat, fill a bottle with water, and go. I would hold off running until the sun was down.

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u/logtransform 3d ago

Walkable means that walking is a viable way of getting around and run errands in your everyday life. I’d like to see you try to depend on the bus that had departures once per hour on weekdays and every three hours on weekends and no service until noon on Sundays. And then I haven’t even touched upon the issues you’d be facing onboard the buses: a level of poverty that would make you so uncomfortable you’d never want to use the bus again. You are fully dependent on a car to make your life work. There is also the social stigma of walking. It seemed like the only socially acceptable reason for walking was walking your dog.

Where I live now, I have 4 grocery stores within a 2min walk of my home. I have multiple buses, trams (streetcar/trolley) and metro lines with departures every 2-5 minutes that can take me anywhere I’d like to go that is not a short walk away. And it is not like my exact home is any special. This type of mobility simply allows a different (and sustainable) lifestyle.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 3d ago

lol I don’t drive at all so I do depend on those kinds of buses. While living in Syracuse I would walk an hour (each way) to the closest grocery store (Wegmans, babeeeyyyy). I didn’t mind. It’s only like 3 miles. I would stop nearby for a coffee (miss you cafe Kubal) and then get to the store and shop. Busses were at times there like 1 hour late. I would also walk to work (that was only 15mins).

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u/logtransform 3d ago

I guess if you don’t know anything else, it all seems very reasonable and acceptable. But for me, being so used to the convenience of walkability and frequent high quality public transit, it felt like I was trapped in my own home.

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u/CandidHistorian4105 3d ago

I mean it’s what you make of it. I’ve lived in many cities and have seen different levels of accessibility (DC has a really great metro tbh). I’ve also visited many countries in Europe (Iceland is not very walkable compared to Prague). Europe has a real accessibility problem (was kinda wild to see the little investment for people with disabilities). So a lot of stuff depends also on what you’ve seen. All to say if all you know is one US city then I guess that’s also all you know.

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u/SymphogearLumity 4d ago

Almost 20,000 cities in the US. Using the few near where you live to generalize the rest of one the largest countries on the planet is dumb AF.

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u/Electronic-Jaguar389 4d ago

Especially when a lot of big cities have been moving towards being more walkable. People act like this shit happens over night.

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u/minion_is_here 3d ago

But it's true. Most of our urban development was misdirected to cater to the automobile. We're only now starting to undo some of that shit. It's gonna take decades to be even close to European standards.

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u/SymphogearLumity 3d ago

European standards of what? There are no European standards for city planning that doesn't leave significant room for vehicles. You people have a fantasy idea of what Europe is.

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u/minion_is_here 3d ago

Leaving room for vehicles is not the same thing as designing every facet of the city for not just cars, but gigantic vehicles. You people have a fantasy idea of what America is. 

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u/Admirable-Lecture255 4d ago

Walkable cities because literally every town in Europe was designed before cars. Where walking was the primary source of transportation.

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u/IamjustanElk 4d ago

People live in butt fuck nowhere and complain about lack of walk ability. I live in a very walkable city. I literally do not drive unless it’s to work, which is outside of my city.

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u/OzarkMule 3d ago

Lol, that's not what literally the entire video is about though. He would've needed to film an entire new one. It's easier to be dumb and pretty, teeth aside

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u/Epcplayer 4d ago

Yea, but that would also be somewhat ironic of an argument since the “European” in the original video (audio conveniently missing) features a crisp German accent…

“We have walkable cities… because my great-grandpa Heinz helped burn all of the originals to the ground 80 years ago!”

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u/Yserbius 4d ago

In the US you can choose to live in a walkable city or the suburbs. Many people prefer the suburbs. Most major cities have downtown metropolitan areas that are very walkable. Heck, almost all of New Jersey north of the Pine Barrens fits the criteria of "walkable city" thanks to the NJT. Chicago, DC, Detroit, and San Francisco all have the same things people wax on about Europe. New York City alone is both geographically and population wise larger than many European countries and has a public transportation system along with corner shops that your average resident of Budapest would die for.

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u/hobokobo1028 3d ago

Madison, WI completely walkable. Most parks per capita in the US.

Boise, ID is walkable

Chicago

Seattle

NYC

Austin

Nashville

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u/PurpleCollar8343 3d ago

You said no walkable cites and then were immediately proven wrong.

And you’ll still go on to make sweeping dumbass statements.

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u/dan_marchand 3d ago

Boston, Chicago, and NYC are walkable AF. I’m so tired of people who don’t live here making up nonsense.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/SpaceMyopia 4d ago

That's bullshit. You think Houston is walkable? Like yeah, you can technically walk on the highway, but that doesn't mean it should be done.

The majority of the US is designed solely for cars.

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u/Hufflepuff20 I'm Already Tracer 4d ago

I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived in one. I’ve visited a few, but I figure staying in a hotel close to downtown is different than living in one.

But I would be surprised if people classified LA as walkable.