> With the size of the US, even traveling within the US it is still similar everywhere you go. An interesting bit about Europe is that you can visit totally different culture with a few hours travel by train.

I agree, and I love this about Europe, but what you're experiencing is monoculture at national scales. You have large regions with single dominant cultures (as opposed to a Europe that is a uniform blend of every culture). I also suspect this is key to Europe's minimal inequality--it's a lot easier to get things done when most people have similar values and when people are willing to conform to the system there's obviously going to be much less inequality (they're not working against the system).