European cities
[Rod Dreher  03/14 08:28 AM]

A reader who requests anonymity writes:

To answer the emailer's question about why our cities don't look like Europe's, here are three big reasons:

1. No need to stay intra mures. European cities were designed for defensive purposes until the advent of gunpowder weapons made walls less relevant in the 1600s/1700s. The population density could be quite amazing back then based on the need to defend against marauders/foreign armies (cf. Edinburgh). The US was created almost entirely after walls were no longer necessary. (That's why there's a Wall Street on Manhattan but not too many other places.)

2. Mass use of the automobile. The more walkable, eye-pleasing American cities were all built before truly widespread automobile ownership, starting after WWII (compare Houston to Boston). Almost all European cities were built before even Boston.

3. The secondary mortgage market. There's about 11 different kinds of buildings that are fungible enough to have their mortgages bundled and resold on the American secondary mortgage market. If you build a truly original building, it can't get financing on nearly as favorable terms because the mortgage risk can't be remarketed and spread over a lot of a lenders. Europe's lenders don't have the option of insisting on cookie-cutter properties, though a lot of new development on the edge does tend to be that way.

A lot of this sort of analysis is covered in Spiro Kostof's The City Shaped and The City Assembled, both fascinating books.