Our self imposed scarcity of nice places
Fantastic cultural divide. This is one of the reasons why I read HN. Most of Europe is more or less walkable - one reason is that the largest urban centers predate cars, but intentional design AF (anno ford) is also a factor.<p>I can bike or walk everywhere, and the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier. I am not very green or anything, I just like to keep things simple.<p>You can check out my hoods in Helsinki in Google maps and streetview (not giving my actual address but close enough).<p>There are has several high quality universities, and several well known startups and game studios operating within the view I linked below. All of it is walkable&#x2F;cyclable&#x2F;public transportable.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;@60.192987,24.8679369,10181m&#x2F;data=!3m1!1e3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;@60.192987,24.8679369,10181m&#x2F;dat...</a><p>Most of Scandinavia is similar, as you get to mainland Europe with bigger population density the story diversifies, but we don&#x27;t really hear &quot;only rich people can walk&quot; stories here.