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> Why Americans were choosing to get away from each other when say, their counterparts in western european haven't been, and aren't living anywhere near such is

> Why Americans were choosing to get away from each other when say, their counterparts in western european haven't been, and aren't living anywhere near such isolated, unhealthy lives, is a question worth asking. Indeed. When Lisbon was expanded in the 1960's the new neighourhoods were laid out so that people could walk to their local church and primary school. The model post-war development in the US was Lewittown. My theory is that it was the availability of cars that caused the difference. I do not think "white flight" (read: unskilled labor) played a part, both Portugal and America experienced urbanization in the interwar period.

BSousa 14y ago
I can't speak about Lisbon as I'm not from there, but up north in Porto and surrounding areas, there hasn't been much planning at all. I live in a town (Ermesinde) that in 15 years went from less than 10,000 people to slightly less than 100,000. The only planning was: build as much as you can, even illegally. About 15% of the new buildings around 2000 were actually against the law (not following proper distance from others among other zoning problems) and were mostly approved based on kickbacks to gov officials. My parents were asked for these 'gloves' from officials when rebuilding some of their old apartments, and my own house wasn't licensed correctly to live on (I bought it used, previous owner/builder didn't obtain the licensing, had to do a lot of construction to get it to code. Talked with the lawyer, he saw the name of the person that signed the papers, said it was common for his work to be illegal as long as he was paid under the table)