It makes me wonder if its related to the age of the area. Newer areas seem to have more sidewalks.
In contrast, every European and Australian city I've lived in has catered for pedestrians and cyclists to the extent that it's at least possible to walk or bike anywhere you need to go (even if it would take hours in these huge Aussie cities).
I still wonder at it. How do Americans feel about living in such a shitty environment?
"America" however is not one environment and is INCREDIBLY diverse. There are places such as you've described in the US as well. Not everywhere has such prejudice against public transit too. However I believe as a whole the US is (or at least was) moving in general to a society that revolves around the automobile.
I'll tell you the absolute worst part of not being in an automobile is for me (as a woman) - the form of street harassment where assholes either beep at you or yell comments at you out the window going by. This has been a huge issue for me in every American city I ever lived in. Somehow people think this is appropriate behavior. It makes me not want to walk in a walkable area.
Walking around at break to the street vendors was pretty cool, even if digestively perhaps risky :-)
I did find it weird that there were these patches of the city where just nothing was built. British cities are incredibly compact - if it's not built on or being built on then it's a manicured public park, usually fenced. But Aussie cities have odd areas that are just empty, too... must be the relative age of the cities that causes this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego#mediaviewer/File:San_...
There are parts of it which are rather other than "beautiful".
that's true (everywhere).
> A place that caters to slow walkers and cyclists sounds worse to me.
and you're no exception.
Perceived because...
A place that caters to slow walkers and cyclists, if minimally well designed, actually improves car traffic throughput. Yes, that may sound counterintuitive. Go look at Copenhagen. You'd never be able to squeeze so many people through so little transportation infrastructure if they were all traveling by car.
LV, LA, and Miami are particularly appalling examples of US cities which have terrible pedestrian access.
That said, I've never seen as many people talking on their phone while driving as I saw last month in Reykjavik.
I'm not from USA, and on the last time I visited it, I noticed how recklessly people drive on the highways, most of them were on the phone, eating, or doing something else(there was even a lady fixing her hair with her right hand, talking on the cellphone with her left hand and holding the steering wheel with her elbow, that freaked me out).
If those people behave the same driving on a street, I can see that being the cause of the majority of accidents, since the reaction time for events will be smaller, since most occurrences happen within a few meters of the car.
Finally, I know that this is not the focus of the article, but the USA cities need to focus more on the people that either cannot or will not(like me) drive. LA, LV and Miami, for instance, were pretty hellish until I finally gave in and rented a car, with poor public transportation and pedestrian access.