> You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed.

I think that’s more likely “and rebuilt according to the old plan”. Very few German cities escaped with limited bombing damage.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/:

“Of the 54 largest cities (>100,000 inhabitants) in Germany, only four survived without significant damage: Lübeck, Wiesbaden, Halle and Erfurt.”