> Amsterdam were well on their way to becoming as car dependent as any other American city.

This claim gets trotted out quite often, but it is only valid if you are specifically referring to the development of Amsterdam’s bicycle infrastructure. Even during those years when Amsterdam saw a rise in car traffic, the city never stopped offering public transit of the sort that most Americans could only dream of. So, the average resident was not forced to own a car.

Also, it's worth noting that American cities demolished good infrastructure (for bikes, pedestrians, and transit) to make way for the veiled promises Big Auto and Big Oil. The transition to car dependence in America was a willful and deliberate act, albeit heavily influenced by lobbying and propaganda by auto and oil industries.

I don't think that occurred through an act of God though. The point was that those cities didn't follow the American model because of the will of their people.