Yes, but in a different way than I believe your question implies. Edward Burtynsky produced an amazing series of photographs centered around the automobile and in his words, how it "represent[ed] not only freedom, but also something much more conflicted."

https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/projects/photographs/oil

One of the most internet famous images from that series is of a stroad in Breezewood, PA:

https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/news-hub/2019/7/25/what-inte...

It's a pity that the only businesses that can cluster around there are just dull chains and yet another bleak HMS-Host-operated rest stop.

If any of you are going through there and have time to get off the PA Turnpike for a while for a meal (or hotel stay), a nice choice would be Bedford PA. It's ~20 miles west of Breezewood. It's an cute old-timey mainstreet town that hasn't been ravaged by rustbelt depression. There are good restaurants there. The Omni Bedford Springs Resort is a nice hotel with a great spa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breezewood,_Pennsylvania#Unusu...

I know for example Ithaca, NY, might qualify. Other examples in the South, Midwest, etc?

Also stroads are not just an American problem. I have found horrible stroads in places where you would never expect them such as Oxford or Copenhagen.

Ithaca is pushing into city territory (I think it has over 80k residents now), and if we’re going to count it, I’d also nominate small southeastern cities such as Savannah, Richmond, and St Augustine.

Maybe certain select towns within those areas, but most of the area within those counties is not "Strong". Particularly where I grew up in Montgomery County, there are potable water issues that the municipalities refuse to address because the costs are too high.

Zoning remains one of the biggest problems in American city planning. The lack of mixed zoning means you end up with a rigid segregation of urban areas, residential areas, and semi-industrial "big-box store stroad hell" areas. What's often missed in discussions about urban density is that in Europe, living in a residential area often means you still have access to amenities by walking, which is almost never true in the US.

Not all Dutch streets fit this pattern perfectly, but even a century before Netherland came up with this explicit definition, we already had a good solution for a main thoroughfare with shops or homes: ventwegen. The main road still has as few access points as possible, but on both sides of it is a slow street for bikes and car-access to houses and shops. At main intersections you can switch from the main road to the ventweg, and this solution might actually be a good fit if you quickly want to fix these stroads without waiting for them to die a natural death.

I do know a few places that aren't entirely clear about whether they're a road or a street. None of them anywhere near as extreme as those American stroads, but Amsterdam definitely has a couple of important connecting roads (especially around the centrum ring; Stadhouderskade etc) that's explicitly intended as a main thoroughfare for cars to reach different parts of the city, but in some places still has bikes on the road, houses and shops, etc.

It's not pretending to be a highway or anything like that, and certainly in the more complex parts, it's just a single lane in each direction, but it's definitely intended to be one of the primary connector roads in the city center, and a valid route if you want to go from the west side of the city to the east side.

Small and medium sized college towns (<100,000 residents, maybe) usually fit the bill as well. But, have the downside of many seasonal tenants and the other things you'd expect with a heavily young-adult-oriented area. But, even in these, you sometimes find you need to drive to a strip mall for big grocery runs - America doesn't really do small neighborhood markets and the price of real estate often drives grocery stores to the outskirts of town.

There's a fair amount of car traffic, because that high street (and the main cross street) are both designated highways, but there's always a lot of foot traffic. Wide sidewalks and no parking lots generally. The surrounding neighborhoods in most directions keep the walkable nature; mostly rowhomes (some converted to student apartments), a university, very few street-facing garages or sidewalk-crossing driveways.

I've heard that some Colorado towns have the same style and are lovely to live in. I was supposed to have a 6 weeks stay around Louisiana/Texas last year and Colorado + Midwest was supposed to be this year, but plans changed, so i cannot confirm if this is true.

Culpeper, VA [0] (passenger railroad station right in downtown that connects to all the big cities on the east coast)

Warrenton, VA [1] (Ridiculously good downtown restaurant scene, whenever I go there there always seems to be some festival or market happening)

Staunton, VA [2] (Beautiful area surrounded by some of the largest tracts of public land in the eastern US)

Fredericksburg, VA [3] (tons of interesting history here)

Charlottesville, VA [4] (look at that pedestrian-only shopping street a block away!)

[0] https://www.google.com/maps/@38.4731207,-77.9962447,3a,75y,1...

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@38.7131072,-77.7940715,3a,60y,2...

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/@38.1496218,-79.0715993,3a,75y,1...

[3] https://www.google.com/maps/@38.3031279,-77.460567,3a,75y,16...

[4] https://www.google.com/maps/@38.031349,-78.4795003,3a,60y,20...

There are a fair number of smaller cities in the Northeast US with walkable cores. I worked in downtown Nashua for about eight years at one point though I didn't go in all the time. A number of those cores are even rather gentrified with nice restaurants, a park or two, newer housing, and so forth.

Here's the thing though. It's a fairly consistent pattern. The gentrified area is usually pretty small. Things are distinctly less nice when you get out of that area. And you probably need to get in a car to do anything beyond the most basic shopping.

Beyond the Northeast, somewhere like Raleigh NC is the same pattern.

On one route out of town the left hand side of the road is an early-mid 20th century parkway, with a grass strip before the street with the houses on it. The other side was little developed due to being a military reservist base. In the last 10 years they have developed it with no regard whatsoever with reflecting the parkway, and the result? Stroadification

It's not just a matter of aesthetics. Stroads are incredibly dangerous.

> Has anyone ever put a picture of a stroad up as art

Nobody puts up little ugly streets of Milan as art either, but stroads in Vegas and LA are certainly photographed quite a bit.

Edit: My comment is confirmed by a few comments just below https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29507951

Cities like NYC and Paris have high baseline cost of doing business there. If the stuff that did cater to tourists didn't also have broad mass market appeal or other usefulness at those high price points (e.g. a hotel can serve business travelers as well) it would be priced out replaced with other stuff

Unlike you, most people struggle to make ends meet, are happy they have a job and can provide for their family. The upper-class "let's build architecture that inspires" screams "I have more money and time than I know what to do with".

It's like looking down at people who eat at McDonald's (I got your reference!) with comments like "these folks wouldn't know good food if their life depended on it!".

Sorry not everyone can be rich and have the same "refined" sense of taste that you do. But they're too stupid to know what's best for them, right?

  "Its the overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo of aesthetics."

Old city centers turned into massive thoroughfares destroy the communities that live there. Whole communities get sacrificed for affluent car owners from the suburbs. But this is not just harmful for poor people, it's also bad for the economy in general; they're inefficient, cost too much money to maintain, don't make enough money, so they require constant influx of subsidies, and this sort of development has lead to the bankruptcy of several US cities. It's not sustainable from any perspective.

is elitism. Even if it's right, it's elitism.

Hope that clears things up for you.

I'll do my part building things that are pretty and useful. You do whatever you think is best.

Guess what, you’re not that much better than everyone who disagrees with you.

Also McDonalds is only cheaper if you’re in a food desert. Which areas that rely on stroads rarely are.

Also, notice how the building around stroads and most “modern” buildings get knocked down and rebuilt every 10 years? Seems like something only a rich society could afford to do.

A building takes more than a year to build typically; if they were being knocked down every 10 years, the entire city would look like nothing more than a construction site.

Also most suburban sprawl is a never ending construction site. It is insanely expensive.

Spoken like someone whose never been poor.

Also expecting people to apologize for their social station is tacky as hell. You play the hand you're dealt to the best of your ability. Anyone who claims otherwise has an agenda. Why would your critique of spoken like someone who has never been poor have any merit whatsoever?

Yeah, it’s be great if it were dense and walkable but guess what, we cant jump from farm land to NYC 5th Ave in one step.

It comes across as incredibly ignorant to be honest.