European cities are much more compact than American. Americans want to live in suburbs in their own houses and drive cars, Europeans have no problem to live in apartments in city and use public transport or bikes. It's generalization, but it goes back to history how European vs American cities were built, so it's nothing really to be proud about, of course ideal would be having house close to downtown but that's just not realistic, in Europe you can have at least apartment, in US usually you don't have even this option in many smaller towns.

Many Europeans nowadays can't reach property prices in cities and are forced to live in suburbs where they end up commuting by cars, same as Americans (I can see that in my family, my sister and cousin rather build house outside and drive cars + switch to train, personally I am against this since I don't want to be taxi driver of my children, so I opt for apartment in city in walking distance to subway, but I am the weird one because I prefer apartment over holy grail - own house, but my sister can enjoy her 1 hour commute and she is extremely lucky her work is next to train station, otherwise it would be like 1.5 hour one way which I say no thanks, I didn't travel that much even in pretty big Beijing).

I doubt they have the hills I have to contend with. I don't want to show up to work drenched in sweat.

For random comparison...

Copenhagen: http://en-us.topographic-map.com/places/Copenhagen-8017438/

Pittsburgh, PA: http://en-us.topographic-map.com/places/Pittsburgh-800970/

San Francisco, CA: http://en-us.topographic-map.com/places/San-Francisco-92496/ (note that the entire scale of the Copenhagen map fits in the bottom 1/6 of the SF map)

Hmmm... I get that, but... A place I worked at provided showers, mainly at the instigation of people who biked to work. Thirty years ago.

There are showers. It's just not for me.

Now I'm dragging a set of clothes/shoes, soap, towel/rag, hair brush, razor, shaving cream, etc to work? Probably should wear sandals in the shower unless I want foot fungus. Then what do I do with my wet towel and stank clothes? Stuff them in a bag where they stink worse? Hang them in my cube?

Then I head home and have to put on my stank clothes and get all sweated up again. Time for another shower I guess.

And that's not mentioning the time in transit, probably an hour a day round trip by bike. This is why I live close to my work. I can drive there with all the street lights and park, portal to portal in 10 minutes.

I bike about 18-20 miles round trip every day and I spend between an hour and an hour and ten minutes on the bike (total, not one way). I bring a change of clothes, lunch, and macbook in a waterproof backpack. Shower once in the morning when I get to work. I get my exercise and my commute done at the same time and I don't have to pay for/maintain/fuel/insure a car. On the off days that I don't feel like cycling or the weather is insane my wife drops me off or I get an uber.

This is my opinion and it may ruffle some feathers but if it takes you 10 minutes to go from door to door in a car and you don't have a disability, you shouldn't be driving to work. At least not every day.

Or how about heat? Ok, maybe I'm biased here...

/I call Phoenix, AZ home...sigh

Aarhus has hills and a 48% bike share.

Looks like not much over a couple hundred feet and Copenhagen is flat as a pancake.

An e-bike solves that problem.

Well of course, its safe there!

In the US we don't have the bike path system yet. Riding a bike in a US city is insanely dangerous.

Congratulations

... because they can not afford to buy a car.

Have you been to Copenhagen? Would you prefer it look like downtown Atlanta?

Yes, I have been there. But winters are cold & rainy and cars are taxed to oblivion.

Maybe that's a good thing.

and because the city has great bike infrastructure and has great (i.e. not hot) weather for biking