American reacts to Why European Cities are Insanely Well Designed 

4:55 "This can be seen all across Europe, as cities such as like Paris and Denmark" That video was definitely made by an American...

Just BTW, someone should tell this guy (not Ryan, the guy talking on the video) that Denmark is a country, not a city, and Sydney is not in Europe. Wow!

We didn't really designed our cities, they just kinda grew bigger.

Using Paris as an example of European street design was not representative of Europe in general since it was demolished and rebuilt to reflect a certain design philosophy. Many European cities grew up from ancient times when herding cattle through the streets was a thing, so the paths of least resistance dictated where the streets became established.

when I see in googleearth the US square shaped areas suburbs (usually 1square mile), all aligned but completely separated from each others, and with only 1 or 2 road accesses. without any local grocery or shops. imagining living there is a nightmare for me

The city of Paris was not "designed" for cars or against cars. The city developped in chaos for 1500+ years, =before= cars existed. The only big improvement to the city "design" was implemented by baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann around 1850 : baron Haussmann destroyed some 18 000 very old houses, replacing them by the large avenues and "modern" 19th century comfortable buildings you see know in the center of Paris.

Most of London I don't think was designed. Modern London is an absorption of many towns into one giant Metropolis. Richmond, Greenwich, Bromley, Croydon, Hampstead, Barking etc to name some towns that became assimilated into London. So no, it's not a grand design. Some elements have been designed, but not the overall picture.

I love how in these videos Europe is portrayed as one single country, with the same planning mindset, philosophy, and history-and to illustrate it, they always use France or the UK 🤦🏼‍♀️

London is classed as an urban forest and one of the biggest

Not really designed. More organically grown. As our cities are sometimes thousands of years old there were no cars, other than horse drawn carts, so no need to design cities for them. Most importantly though is the fact that cities must be designed for the people that live, work in them.

Grid plan wasn't invented in the U.S.A.. The ancient Romans have already used a grid system.

Blocks make American cities boring, it makes the driving boring, and it forces lots of "square" buildings!

ah yes, the city of denmark 😂 edit: wow, how he butchered champs elysées

Many European cities were built on ancient Roman camps and the Romans designed their camps in a square way. Later, over the centuries, cities grew radially around those first historic centers. European cities may seem more confusing but they are very pleasant to explore on foot also because each neighborhood has its own history and personality, in some cities, like Rome, you can see buildings from different centuries at the same time

beside the denmark fauxpas: what is this guy talking about? radial cities are NOT norm in europe. most (not all) city`s shapes are characterized by the old, mostly removed city walls, so they are circular around a centre.

UK and European cities grew from villages and small towns over such a long time. We didn't 'build radial cities'. City planning is a relatively new concept when you look at how old most of our major cities are

I assume the intentions of the creator of the original video were good, unfortunately he didn't have the knowledge needed. "Hij heeft de klok horen luiden, maar hij weet niet waar de klepel hangt" or he has an understanding of something, but fails to grasp the full story.

Hi Ryan. The tendancy for most European cities (and indeed towns) is for traffic free centre zones. This can be exclusively pedestrian or it can be "bus only". You leave your car in outskirts carparks and take a shuttle bus in. In many European (and some British) cities, the bus is free and runs in a circle around the historic and commercial quarters, connecting the station and bus station.

Paris is quite a strange example, as Paris was redesigned in the 19th century, especially by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, prefect of the Departement Seine, which includes Paris, between 1853 and 1870. He invented the long, straight, wide roads (Boulevards) meeting in large, circular knots like the Place de la Concorde. His urban renewal programs were executed without much thought given to previous land uses. In Rome, a similar program was executed after the Italian Risorgimento (Rebirth) 1861-1864. Rome also got those wide axial roads, and sometimes, they would just cut through an existing palazzo. The main difference between the U.S. and Europe in the 19th century was "grid city" vs. "axial city". But there are notable exceptions. Washington, DC for instance was designed as an axial city, while Mannheim, Germany was designed as grid city.

I lived in LA in 2011 and 2012, and found that city very easy to navigate because of the grid pattern compared to my home town of Gothenburg in Sweden. In LA you navigate by intersections and that is very efficient. In Gothenburg you have to know the exact street address. But the grid pattern also makes the city very boring and uniform. In LA all the green spaces are created and fit into the grid, while in Gothenburg they aren't. Instead the city is built around nature, and so the green spaces feel more natural. Although both cities have public transportation, the one in Gothhenburg is much more reliable because it is almost always on time regardless of when during the day you use it. In LA it all depends on the car traffic flow. Often during rush hour (both mornings and afternoons) the buses were around one hour late so taking the earlier bus became norm for me and my room mates when going to class (I wen't to Santa Monica College), and that usually meant leaving home half an hour earlier. That rarely happens in Gothenburg. If you miss your connection, there is always a new bus or tram (cable car) within ten minutes.

The lack of blocks in Paris is compensated by landmarks being visible from many angles, so you rarely get lost.

Star cities are mind-blowing! The extensive earthworks, the canals, the gorgeous symmetry, the islands and fortresses all amazing!

its so cute seeing Ryan being as confused as us Europeans about parking and the size of cars used by just one person ;)

Most cities in Europe were walled locations which had to be protected in Middle Age from wars and battles, with castles and so on. Later groups of artisans chaotically built their neighbourhoods outside the wall limits. But USA wasn't created in medieval or feudal times, they cannot know how those shaped a different world.

As London is 2000 yrs old and was originally a village, I don’t think it was designed. The Romans probably introduced the first element of any design, but not like urban planning.

YOU LOOKING AT THE WRONG VIDEO , YOU MAST LOOK AT [NOT JUST BIKES ]

This guy doesn't seem to know much about European cities. Would not recommend the video.

yeah well, European cities are not so much "designed" but grew over hundreds of years. Started with group of huts, grew bigger, had walls around it, grew out of it again and at some point centers where marketplaces, churches or city townhalls. I mean all is wayy older than for example Jamestown, Virginia (1607).

6:14 lol, the pronunciation 😂

In London, building developments in the 1800’s the road were in a grid pattern. Whereas in the 1930’s and later road were designed in circles and in the 1950’s the road were circular with individual road not being through roads, this enabled neighbourhoods to developed and through routs kept away from residential areas.

9:20 USA-cities have the problem of strict zoning beside being car centric. Zoning laws in the USA does not allow a mix of residential and small business. A bakery, a butcher, a small grocery store, a barber and a restaurant in the area of 15min by foot of residential home is not done in the USA. If you forgot to buy something for your Sunday cake you often have to drive an hour in the USA while in Europe it's a short walk to the grocery store to get some flour, eggs, etc. in grocery store around the corner. Something you can ask your kids to do. Another problem are the parking laws - as far as I know a business has to have the same size of parking lot the business building has. I saw a video where they said that there are more parking spaces than cars in the USA, while in Europe you have less parking spaces than cars. For example Düsseldorf has 326000 commuters daily and only 13500 public parking spaces. Most of the commuter park their cars on special commuter parking lots near the train stations and use the train to get into the city. Both situations are not okay. The USA has to much and Europe to few parking spaces. Having a more comfortable amount like 3-5 cars for every parking space would be a better solution in my opinion.

When a French word ends with a consonants, It is pronounced silent. So the "s" at the end "champs" is not to be sounded out. Same with "étudiant" which is the masculine version of "student". However the feminine version "étudiante" the last "t" is pronounced because the word ends with a vowel. Please pronounce correctly; it just sounds terrible if you don't. Thank you for attending my TedTalk. :)

"The model of the european city", "the blueprint of the european city" ... That is really, really ... really nonsensical. European cities have extremely different designs and that even includes grid based designs reaching back to the ancient romans, medieval designs, organic developments (including merging of multiple smaller and older communities) and various (regionally different) more modern concepts - including redesigns at large scales. The person who made the video understood very little about european cities - which should have become evident, when he called the country Denmark a city. If you really want to start to understand the differences, do yourself (and your american viewers) a favour, open google maps and explore the layouts and differences of various cities yourself.

I just want to point out, there's one city in Germany that is famous for its grid system or "Quads", that is Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg.

You are right with the black hole comparison. The roundabout in Paris around the Arc de Triomphe IS a black hole. You can get lost there forever and never find out again. I am one of the survivers.

I guess that's one thing European and US cities have in common then: finding a parking space. The difference is that in Europe that becomes an incentive to not take the car and why so many Europeans living in cities doesn't even own a car. But in a car-centric country like the US the lack of parking space becomes a daily nightmare.

Ah yes. The American grid- method ! ( As introduced by the ancient Roman empire allover Europe . ;) This video is a allover the place . Paris centre was re-build in the 19th century, and used the spoke pattern. Barcelona however was rebuild in the 19th century on a grid pattern.. New York's Manhattan used to be New Amsterdam, and was build with a grid pattern by the Dutch . Some European centers have grids, some are circular, most just grew randomly .There is no general 'European design '

You already indicate it yourself, the cars are TOO BIG and they usually sit in them alone. There are enough alternatives, but they don't want to start with them, and that is why little is changed. Plus the lobbying of the car manufacturers in the USA plays a big part, hence little to no bicycle and pedestrian paths and little to no decent public transport.

My sister went to Newyork and said how bad the traffic was the beeping there horns all the time . Give me an old city any day looks nicer for a start .

We have multi storey at parks in the U.K. But I imagine London has a parking problem for residents but then we don’t have monster cars and trucks usually.

There is an old saying in Europe that is: All roads lead to Rome. Thus all roads are radial outwards from Rome.

The video fails to mention how most European cities grew organically from a number of smaller settlements that merged together over time.

Grid designs go back to Romans and their military camps, it's not an "American" invention. We even used that technique for several cities in the new world, such as Lima or Mexico, the capitals of our two main Viceroyalties, which now are their "historical" downtowns. But I don't really like it. We have 2 districts in Madrid built that way in XIX century expansions, where all the streets and buildings look the same and you get lost. Btw, the city at 8:02 was Barcelona 😄 a city founded by Romans during Caesar Augustus which has 2000 years.

Navigating European cities is easy, most main roads lead to the centre usually where the business and shopping district is, also we don’t have traffic lights every 100 yards lol

Cities in Europe are not well designed, because there is no "one method" to plan Paris for example, different ages, different visions, planning sometimes they build something to destroy and reorganized it few decades/centuries later, and they also built for commercial purpose in the middle ages, money is kinda old. Plus most of the planning was made before the car so Today pedestrian planning works pretty well but it was a nightmare in the 80's when they tried to put road everywhere.

A somewhat radial pattern naturally emerges, when people from all different directions approach a point of interest. Is a natural way paths form as a netword between places You need to go. The obvious thong is to ho there directly, not in 90 degree angles. Thats how older Europeam cities formed. And of course every new path that formed had to account for structures that were already there, other roads, buildings, trees, creeks, rivers, bridges, hills, troughs. Sometimes the shortest, most head on way wasnt the most convenient, useful or even possible. You.cam so.etimes see examples of this in park planning. Sometimes paths accross the grass will form, because planners diddnt acoount for the batural flow of where people will want to go amd that that they.dont like to go around an extra corner if they dont have to

And we still manage to have lots of green spaces in our European cities.

While not in Europe I immediately thought of Canberra, Australia. Take a look at a map, it's radial mania. 🙂

Best way to describe it... USA cities are designed. European cities are grown.

european cities had an organic growth during 2000years they become larger without the car in mind and the planification exemple are very late in the history without car in mind It's the principal reason why make pedestrian and bile lane are easy to make in Europe US totally destruct cities in 50 years it was a cultural and urban genocide you need to totally rebuild yours cities with mixed used, more density and public transports

Inner cities are often car free

9:12 Wait wait wait wait wait wait..... You find it WEIRD that cities are built to be lived in? The mere thought that you feel that way feels outright alien to me, like I can barely even fathom that that's what you actually think.

"Insanely" Really? These cities have grown over hundreds of years and were never "designed" as American cities. The United States chose to build its cities and suburbs on the basis that every family had access to a car (or several). You can argue with that, but the fact that nothing is being done NOW to change that is really beyond all reason.

City like Denmark? that's new.

Without being an expert in the matter, a country whose surface area of ​​parking spaces for cars is greater than the surface area reserved for housing is wrong, and this is the case of the United States.

04:58 Denmark is a country, not a city!😂😅

The cons about Europeans cities is when you have a good sense of direction of where you want to go. The streets don't always line up. You have to drive longer and make more turns than in an American city.

Rome is a very interesting city and we have many important streets or avenues (ancient ones) that arrive to Rome from other regions and fare away from the city. Rome's map is like a bicycle's wheel with all the consular streets arriving to the center. And around the city there is a road as a ring, which you can take to go to the opposite side of the city, without going into the complicated traffic of Rome. That round street is called "raccordo anullare".

Where do you park the car? This would never come in my mind.....😂😢

as i understand it - ya have a lot more congestion with a streetlayout like the one in new york especially if ya moving from one short street corner to the other - every 20~30 sec an red light - not fun.

You live in Indiana? That`s Eerie!!!

If you have to build a wall around a city for protection the circle is the shape that offers the most protection for the least amount of stone. If you have a village at a junction of several roads in the centre you can make a village square by turning the junction into a big roundabout. Amsterdam, the one on the old map, is one of Europe's first designed cities. It was designed to give the greates number of merchant houses direct access to the canals so they could use the top floors as warehouses. It was designed to make money more than any city, just not only one time by selling the plot but for continuous money making. It is a half circle because there is a river to one side and fortifications on the other side.

The content provider can't see the wood for the trees here. He's unwittingly still seeing it from a wholly American POV as if there's a comparison to be made at all. The vast majority of European cities weren't designed from scratch and existed long before industrialisation and the actual existence of cars. It's not about car-centricism Vs pedestrianism as the car wasn't a thing to be factored in for good or bad. They just didn't exist to be a thing to be considered. It wasn't a choice between good for cars or good for people. Most European cities are old and, largely, grew organically as needed. Outside of things like bombing due to war, there wasn't the opportunity for designing something anew. That's something most Americans struggle with along with the need for cheap and quick housing solutions in the post-war era.

Denmark city capital of Copenhagen District in the State of Finland part of the Scandinavian States of Europa land of the moose.

Not sure if I agree with the whole European planning spiel, well I kinda don't. American cities are indeed planned, European cities, some are 1000+ years old, they aren't planned. Some fella started a farm or a inn or a church or what not, some other fella thought it was easy and build his house next to it, do that times 1234567 generations and you have a European city. Then the last few 100 years people started to plan out things more, so you end up with what you have now, a semi structured Organically grown city.

I bet you dint know new york grid system bis based on Glasgow Scotland

If you need a car instead of a bike it's by definition not more efficient in any way. American cities are designed that biking or walking simply isn't an option. But when Biking or walking is an option, a 5 to 20 minute bike-ride is more efficient than a 5 to 20 minute car ride, because of costs and never a parking problem. Besides that Americans take longer to reach work or shops in their cars, then Europeans do biking or walking. Example: I live an a European city, my house is in the city, my work is at the edge of the city. It takes me between 12 and 30 minutes to get to work in my car, depending on traffic, on average I'd say 17-18 mins. On my bike it takes always 14-15 mins, because traffic never is a problem. Ps. the 12 mins in my car, I did at night after 10pm, when all the traffic lights are turned of, except the ones in the city center and there was zero traffic.

people came before means if transport in Europe. Major part of european cities, towns and villages have ancient or middle age structure

Not all European cities are the same. Some were rebuild after being destroyed or burning down at some point, other grew purely organically. They simply tend to be somewhat circular because it's the most efficient shape. Also, older cities usually had (circular) walls which were usually demolished at some point, leaving circular rings of streets behind.

4:09 "when with the flow" is actually pretty true in many instances... Even more when build along a river and/or between hills! The super-round design as showed in the video is actually not that much used, as the central roundabout is bound to be clogged at rush hour! it's still true that many city are build more or less roundly, but it's more about having highways and others mains roads going around the city and not through it... and more and more often, instead of a central roundabout, the very center of the city is turn into a walk only zone!

In the Middle Ages, cities (in Europe) were built usually around the most important building, which in those days was mostly a church, or the city hall. So the radial base was much more common and convenient. Also, differences in height didn't always provide a grid-like city planning.

Many old cities often had defensive walls around them, so they grew from the centre, often the main square where the market was, towards the limit of the wall, grids didn't quite make sense in that context. Having winding streets was also a good way of disorienting the enemy entering the town, while locals could run away or hide easily as they knew how to navigate their streets. That's now the old town in many cities, the walls often gone, and newer areas are built following a grid, which makes more sense

This video is a gross generalization bordering desinformation. Said by someone who lives in a european city that has a grid and it s not concentrical. More importantly, most european cities that are bike or pedestrian friendly today became so in the last decades.

Ryan slowly becoming an urbanist youtuber

Here in the UK our planning authorities in each city are the overriding decision makers when it comes to new developments and even changes to single properties. A major effect of this will be that they determine during the planning stage what infrastructure will need to be present, whether schools, shopping, medical facilities will be available. Public transport and cycle paths are also a big consideration. Most of our Main Streets where the majority of shops are located will be pedestrianised, therefore no traffic will be allowed apart from deliveries which are restricted to specific times, usually early morning.

Maybe you should have the European stuff you react to previewed by some europeans, just to check if you are not reacting to weird stuff that is factually incorrect (Denmark a city? Sidney in Europe??)

Most places just "evolved". They weren't planned. " The champs eel ee says " !!?? WTF !!??

There is absolutely no faster way, on foot, than navigating a European city, which is hundred of years old and started in medieval times. It looks weird and confusing, but it's actually also planned, not random. It was designed, when almost all of the population did their daily things, on foot.

As a European, one thing I do need to agree on- american cities which use mainly numbers to identify streets are a lot easier to navigate. If I'm in NYC and sb says "it's on the corner of 38th & 3rd" - I know exactly where that will be and how far away from where I am, without googling the street location. It is soulless, but it is easier ;)

This video is...silly. It doesn't really go into why a "radial" city would be better than a grid-based one (And I don't see how it would), and the idea that all cities in Europe work like that is....ridiculous. They don't. Where they do, it's most likely some ruler radically redesigning an existing city with no regards for the people that lived there. Only very few cities in Europe were planned that way (Karlsruhe in Germany being an example for that - and yet, just 100km away, Mannheim, a grid-based European city). Most cities just grew organically.

Radial design in european cities has another effect : As you would have many mix buildings, with shops under and flats over it, you'll often have richer areas in the center and close to it (except usually trainstation place, where it's poor), at places with better public transport and more services. And as you're going to immigrants/workers etc, you'll be more in the suburb, so you're hidden from city center, and you'll have less transports, less shops restaurants police etc... It's that design that helped created communautarism as you wouldn't be able to blend. At least that's the case in France. I don't think it's any different in the US, where you'll have rich and poor areas, but here you'll have a massive difference in the services you can get. I think that difference is due to France (can't say for sure about rest of europe) more being built arround "bourgeoisie", so rich people living in the cities, historically owners of the shops in city center, and US being more built arround industrial sized economy. I don't think there's any good place of friendly people (as in, good vs evil). It's just not the same sight on rich people, USA being on another scale. Historical matter also at work because of course, european cities are mostly older than any industrial sized economy. When USA became a thing with that.

Yes i cant understand why one person is in an big ugly truck 😂

Radial based cities are based upon Roman City building. (Radial based cities are better to defend)

The settlements have been there for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years and just developed. After a big fire or war some changes were made or the streets were made bigger, but not much more.

My home town in Europe is old and the streets are just design by ad hoc during five hundred years. Organized chaos, but beautiful.

Barcelona looks kinda cool from above, check it out.

Feet before wheels. Hooves before tyres. People before cars. Horses before byres. Transport for public use None, for transport abuse. Getting around, about, and car deals On foot, on horseback, cart-wheels... Parking problems, arise, Sir Vain, Tie up your packhorse, no blur, (again) Riding, walking, cycling too, Travelling, from here to there, me to you. Ryan Wuzer learns how to be A modern guy, and _importantly_ "free" Able to plan for the future, m'dear Sell your car/truck, move to Euro/ UK* (here*!) 🤔🇺🇸🤞 👍🙂💕🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿💕🇬🇧💕🤭🖖

Most of our cities weren't planned radially, they developed more or less in that shape around for example a medieval crossing of trade routes or a river crossing. From there they grew and once a defense wall had to be built, a circle or an egg is an efficient shape. The area of Paris they showed in the video was redeveloped in that perfect radial shape way later in the 18th or 19th century. Planned city expansions from that time also sometimes are block-shaped like in Barcelona or Berlin-Friedrichstadt. A planned radial city is Karlsruhe in southwest Germany, where the center is a palace and it was built this way to show the power of the absolutist Monarch in the baroque era.

many Cities in Europe started as a roman settlement with a grid street system... btw, the video is not very accurate

I wish you wouldn't interrupt so much, it's very annoying. European cities were built before 'Amerca' came into existence, ie. modern cities. European cities are really beautiful and diverse in architectural design. America, not so. You have some magnificent buildings, but give me Europe every time.

Some cities were partially redesigned to 'please the eye' (like Paris), some were (partly) rebuilt differently after fires and other natural disasters or wars (think ww2 mass bombing of whole cities -- atleast in Austria and Germany, we're still regularly digging up live bombs to this day). But: most older cities just kept on growing out from their (pre-)medieval cores until they started 'swallowing' nearby villages and towns. For example, Vienna, Austria, started out as a Roman Empire border fortress and settlement on the river Danube about 2000 years ago, Vindobona. Some of the roads in the old city center are still where the Romans put them. *edit* there's actually a nice WIkipedia page for Vindobona in English if you're interested :)

The parking isn't the worst part of car centrism, it's the way it deals with pedestrians and bikers. And how it stunts child development by not allowing them to go anywhere without mom or dad driving. But you still expect them to be adults one day, without really giving them a chance to learn self sufficiency before. Add to that the way not having a car is basically exile, making it all but impossible to require actual driving skills or safe cars... Tesla basically sells that Serial killer of a Cybertruck by saying "don't worry, how many people you kill, YOU are safe in this mess!"

The City of Denmark ....😂. Pretty damned powerfull citystate 😂

look at europe, all roads lead to Rome.

You should react to NotJustBikes he does really good videos on European and American infrastructure

I'm pretty sure most places in Europe just grew over the years. There are some new cities and towns, but many are just added onto overtime and have grown organically. So have planning that fits the time in which they were built, not the city as a whole. Even small towns can be ancient.

The "European" radial design has practical advantages if you know what they are, but that is difficult to answer these days. The younger people are, the less interested they are in such things. For example, "house numbers" in a small German town, but also in the big cities always lead to the (respective) city center! Why? Because in medieval towns and villages the church, a market place or a "fortress" was the center and from there they started to "count" the houses. Later it was used extensively by Napoleon's invading troops. One of the best known anecdotes about this is the creation of the brand name for "Eau de Cologne 4711", This led to us thinking of perfume all over the world when we think of the term, although it is just a variation of the French term "water from the city of Cologne". In French, "Eau de Cologne" means, nowadays, funnily enough, just "COLOGNE" (the city)

Not Ryan's fault but this reaction was terrible because he unwittingly got hoodwinked by a content provider who didn't really know what he was talking about.

Je the oldest City in Amerika around 400years and Europe 3000years See the differenz.

I had to stop at 0:45 already. Paris was redesigned in the 19th century and the grid of Manhattan already existed at that time. I don't care about the rest if the video starts with this nonsense. The Netherlands are a prime example for why history is almost irrelevant for this particular matter. The title has a bias, too: it's missing "well designed *for pedestrians or bikes*".