The most jarring thing about visiting the United States for me was the car-centric design of the cities. We lived in an apartment in Palo Alto, and doing the m

The most jarring thing about visiting the United States for me was the car-centric design of the cities. We lived in an apartment in Palo Alto, and doing the most basic things was impossible without a car - grocery shopping, going to the office, going out for dinner or to a meeting. Even bikes weren't really enough. Eventually we caved and had to pay the extra expense of renting a car through a car sharing site. San Francisco was really not much better - to get there, the only viable option was either to drive or to take the CalTrain - always extraordinarily crowded in the busiest hours, not to mention slow and with long waits in between trains. Getting around in the city on foot also presented an ordeal, but at least MUNI and BART helped somewhat. This added a huge expense for our company that would have been completely unnecessary in other cities - including the rental price and fuel, the car ended up burning about $800/mo on its own. Not to mention the amount of time wasted driving around to get basic things done like visiting the bank or the supermarket. It became clear to me why companies like Uber were making a killing in the U.S - public infrastructure was so badly supported that there is just no way to live without access to a vehicle. I can't imagine what it must be like for the working poor, who must pay for the expense of a vehicle just to subsist.