USA vs Walkable Cities

Hello all, I'm back to complain about modern America. A lot of people tend to get pissy when people criticize the 'miraculous' USA, but none of my blog posts get too many interactions to where that will be an issue, hah.

Even though all of the US states are 90% car dependent, No matter what, the urban areas are worse for pedestrians. I live in urban Texas, and it's completely unwalkable without crossing five 4-lane roads, construction sites for new dollar stores even though there's one on every damn street, and barely any cross walks. There's more roads than necessary, and they are riddled with pot holes and cracks, so why even bother making more roads and highways if they don't care for them? (Especially if you are in a low income area, I frequently visit one for the stores and there's more potholes than usable road there...) For example of how bad it is, I live 0.5 miles away from a gas station. When driving, its less than 5 minutes. When walking, its almost 20 if you don't jaywalk, have to switch sides of the road due to construction, have to wait for assholes who don't wait for pedestrians to pass at the rare crosswalks, etc. As someone who doesn't have a license and doesn't like driving extremely short distances, it's really tough to get anywhere without it being an extremely long and dangerous walk. I'd rather not play Crossy Road just to get an Icee.

When we look at other countries, Many European countries are extremely walkable and pedestrian friendly.  For example, When looking at the 50 most walkable countries, Italy, Greece, Latvia, Germany, and Spain are *roughly* the top 5. (source) The US though, is at the very end. These countries hardly use cars, and uses mostly walking and biking. These countries also tend to have much better health rates compared to car dependent ones. According to this study, people living in unwalkable cities are almost 20% more likely to develop pre-diabetes, compared to those in walkable ones. Plus, those in walkable communities tend to be more fulfilled in life and much happier. (source) These citizens are healthier and happier than us Americans are in our car dependent infrastructure, but why can't we change to happier, greener, and more fulfilling infrastructure? It's obviously much cheaper to protect nature than to build more 10 mile long parking lots for tiny stores. It's wasteful of useful space, and reduces the beauty of the earth. There's nothing to love in a concrete jungle, compared to the true beauty of the real jungle. 

In all, The USA is incredibly unwalkable, and is a more depressing and unhealthy environment compared to other, actually walkable countries. The welfare of citizens would be greatly impacted in better, more natural conditions.