If that interests you, maybe the question "how did it get to be like this" will too. This video is pushing a point down your throat. If you can ignore that at

If that interests you, maybe the question "how did it get to be like this" will too. This video is pushing a point down your throat. If you can ignore that at the end it compares Canada's New London to Holland’s Utrecht: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0 Turns out the choice between "Middle America Suburbia" path and the other you describe really is a choice. Some have very deliberately chose one and some equally deliberately have chosen the other. Like you I've nearly always lived in the "American Suburbia" style. Like you I literally didn't realise (in fact I would have scoffed at the idea) there were other choices. That was despite the fact I was taught by migrant European teachers, who, when I look back, made it very plain what they thought of the "American Suburbia" style of living. Us calmly accepting the extra overheads of longer roads, consequent travel times, power transmission, transport fuel costs, freight and so on just blew them away. It blew me away too once I understood it. Then, again like you, I got live in one of these high density neighbourhoods for a very short while, and experienced the level of social cohesion and the "big village" feel of it. Now I think "wtf? I've been had".