You seem rather less informed on the topic than you think. To start, as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_

You seem rather less informed on the topic than you think. To start, as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_city will verify, the switch in the USA to car-centric cities began in the 1920s. By the 1930s, about half of American households had cars. And American cities were being reshaped by this. After the war, the automobile industry did conspire to remove public transit to improve profits. However this was on top of a giant car-centric housing boom, and already wide existing infrastructure changes. Which all contributed. The American experience stands in stark contrast to Europe. In pre-war Europe, cars were only a luxury item for the rich. Germany's early success came in part because it was more mechanized than the rest of Europe. But even so, about 80% of all of Nazi German logistics was by horse. They were absolutely unprepared for what happened after the USA converted car manufacture over to tanks and airplanes. With the result that the USA quickly outproduced the rest of the planet combined. (Though, to correct a common American misconception, the most important military use of American equipment was by Soviet soldiers.) After WW 2, Europe's manufacturing increased rapidly. And yes, cities did become more "car centric". Including Amsterdam. But even "car centric" Amsterdam was nowhere comparable to the average US city. By the time the 70s rolled around, car ownership was still well behind the USA. Yes, new construction was planned for cars, but there was a lot less of that than in the USA. And the core of various cities, including Amsterdam, was still built to the old scale. The scale that the core of a city is built at, matters. Even in the USA it matters. The USA has many cities that were highly populated before cars. Particularly Manhattan. By and large, they remain walkable today. But cities that were constructed almost entirely after cars, such as Los Angeles, are car-centric to an extent that simply never has existed anywhere in Europe. No, not even in the bad old days of "car centric" Amsterdam. And so, I stand by my point. I'm someone who has visited multiple countries, and has lived in a variety of cities. I've lived both with and without a car for various stretches of my life. Take any city in the world that is an example of a good place for living by mass transit and bicycling. At no point in its history was it anywhere near as car centric as the average US city. And that is true whether you compare to how car centric the US city is today, or to how car centric it was back when the other city had more cars. So lay off on "car centric Amsterdam". It's an argument based on comparing apples and oranges. It was never even remotely comparable to the average US city.