> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history? Oh, it's definitely intentional. Sure, pre-industrial cities had narrow streets

> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history? Oh, it's definitely intentional. Sure, pre-industrial cities had narrow streets that were poorly suited for car traffic, so you could say that walkable cities were technically the default. But a lot of those European cities were intentionally changed towards car transportation in the middle of the 20th century, when cars became widespread and a symbol of post-WW2 wealth, widening street and turning historical squares into parking lots. And most of those cities were turned back into walkable (or bikable) cities since the '80s onwards, by banning cars and reusing the parking lots for other purposes. Here's [0] an article about the Netherlands's intentional policy in that regards, and here's [1] a more recent effort in Spain. A lot of Reddit's popular "then and now" posts show this off [2]. [0] https://www.distilled.earth/p/how-the-netherlands-built-a-biking https://www.distilled.earth/p/how-the-netherlands-built-a-bi... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/barcelona-launches-10-year-plan-to-reclaim-city-streets-from-cars https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/barcelona-laun... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1cv555r/my_hometown_then_and_now/ https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1cv555r/my_hometown...