That itself is a product of current culture. Since the Second World War the expectation in most places is that cities and towns get built and then just grow wit

That itself is a product of current culture. Since the Second World War the expectation in most places is that cities and towns get built and then just grow with new permanent neighbourhoods. Nothing changes, the city just gets appended to. On the other hand someone living in New York City in 1900 would have no expectation of their area staying the same forever - things were constantly getting replaced because that was the culture of the the time - replace something old with something better. This is probably just a product of the car making it practical to throw up new far flung developments instead of modifying the development of existing dense areas.