It is really hard to get a "feel" for a city as a tourist, because almost by definition you're going to be in the "central/old" area or traveling to the central area from a cheap hotel on the outskirts somewhere, and those are optimized for tourist activity.

I also found walking in Rome and Paris to be as fast as transit, but I'm not going to even begin to pretend the vast majority of "average" Romans or Parisians live within the 'old city'.

It also helps that almost by definition the 'old cities' in Europe are very old and quite compact. Once you start trying to get to the "central business district" instead of the "city center" it gets more American-esque, but still doable.