Which European city is most Americanized?

23167 Views 72 Replies 38 Participants Last post by Taller, Better, May 16, 2012

CigarSmoke

Discussion Starter · Apr 24, 2012

I'm not sure whether there really is one, but which European city would you say looks most like an American city in terms of infrastructure, road layout, architecture and just its general style?

I've heard it said that Rotterdam looks like an American city, but I disagree. Rotterdam is a very modern city, but it's modern in a European way, not an American way, if that makes any sense.

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BringMe

· #2 · Apr 24, 2012

european countries overseas territories can be consider "European" right?

isaidso

· #3 · Apr 24, 2012

None of them.

Skyprince

· #4 · Apr 24, 2012

Which European country is the most car-oriented with vast sprawl ? Is it Iceland ?

NorthWesternGuy

· #5 · Apr 24, 2012

Toulouse?

Jonesy55

· #6 · Apr 24, 2012

Iceland is probably a good suggestion, I think they even have US cars there that most of Europe don't have.

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Fab87

· #7 · Apr 24, 2012

The same goes for some cities of northern Norway, maybe.

BringMe

· #8 · Apr 24, 2012

The ABC islands are very american especially Aruba

NordikNerd

· #9 · Apr 24, 2012

I would say russian cities look american, especially suburbia, grey and drab concrete architecture, big commercial signs, very wide avenues, few pedestrian and bicycle zones. Lots of cars, many SUVs.

Stratosphere 2020

· #10 · Apr 24, 2012

BringMe said:
The ABC islands are very american especially Aruba

Aruba is not a part of Europe, nor is it a European city. It is an autonomous country within the Dutch Kingdom. Its economy is largely dependent on the U.S. with strong U.S. tourism presence, it is not a surprize that there will be some Americanization going on like most all Caribbean islands.

Holland in addition to England have the most pro American mindset in Europe. And American influence on Dutch society is clearly visible. From fastfood chains near highways, to having many American programs on television with Dutch subtitles, to the construction of suburbia near big cities. I would say Almere is the best example in Holland of a typical booming American sprawling town.

vladanng

· #11 · Apr 24, 2012

some Russian cities, and they in Russia love to drive also American trucks, they also drive very expensive cars, SUVs, big buildings, i mean suburbia of Moscow actually look like suburbia of some NYC parts.

CigarSmoke

Discussion Starter · #12 · Apr 24, 2012

Stratosphere 2020 said:
Holland in addition to England have the most pro American mindset in Europe. And American influence on Dutch society is clearly visible. From fastfood chains near highways, to having many American programs on television with Dutch subtitles, to the construction of suburbia near big cities. I would say Almere is the best example in Holland of a typical booming American sprawling town.

Despite being fairly pro-American, I wouldn't say British cities look particularly American, whereas the Dutch have really taken to the grid-style, wide-avenue, modern architecture style that is so common in US cities.

Also, a bit of random knowledge that may or may not be relevent, but as far as I'm aware, the Netherlands is the only country in Europe to use the same font and colour on their road signs as the US does.

Most of Europe uses the French style road signs, and the UK has their own style, but the Netherlands has copied the US, which for what that's worth I feel definately shows a level of US influence in their infrastructure.

julesstoop

· #13 · Apr 24, 2012

The Netherlands has (a history of) stringent planning regulations and American style sprawl does not occur here: most Dutch exurbs (e.g. Almere, Purmerend, Lelystad) are more dense than American suburbs. Detached houses are very rare in NL (and very expensive). Secondly: metropolitan areas in the Netherlands are rarely contiguous (there are green zones and belts very close to the cities) and often poly-centric, even while they're comparatively small. Whereas US metros with a similar population are more mono-centric, contiguous and generally up to almost 10 times as large area-wise. As for infrastructure: you can get just about anywhere in NL by train, for example. This is certainly not true for most of the US.

I'd rather nominate Flanders, which is (besides the great historic city centres) basically one huge suburbia with high car dependence, many detached houses and a lot of private freedom with regards to the architecture and construction of your personal property.

tikiturf

· #14 · Apr 24, 2012

julesstoop said:
I'd rather nominate Flanders,

Wallonia is also very sprawled.

Crash_N

· #15 · Apr 25, 2012

Manchester for the sprawl, although the city lacks the massive highways/motorways on the scale ( and in number ) of American cities, and its architecture and road layout is very different to that of the US cities.
Birmingham is also very car-centric, and it has lots of motorways and is extremly sprawled. The post-war modernization of its city centre has, like in so many American cities, eliminated much of the old housing stock and office/public buildings from the pre-war era. However, it does not feature a grid layout.

Jonesy55

· #16 · Apr 25, 2012

I wouldn't say that Manchester or Birmingham are extremely sprawled by US standards at all. They also have some of the higher public transport modal shares among UK cities, though not as high as London of course, and extensive commuter rail, bus and tram networks.

Galro

· #17 · Apr 25, 2012

^^ How come so large cities in such a rich country who come up with the idea of subways in the first place, don't have subways?

Jonesy55

· #18 · Apr 25, 2012

Possibly the suburbs are a bit too low-density to justify the cost of so many tunnels, but they have train/tram services that go most places a subway would go anyway....

the spliff fairy

· #19 · Apr 25, 2012 (Edited)

Actually British suburbia is very, very well provided by trainlines (the 'underground' goes overground in the suburbs) - the London area for one has hundreds of small villages and towns connected by rail to the centre, I think it's the largest such suburban network in the world. However, of course once you're into the centre the lines need to go subterranean due to the density of buildings.

In ye olden days the underground was only possible in soft alluvial clays, such as in London. In other cities it just wasn't feasible to hack through rock on a massive scale. To this day even in London the whole half of the city south of the river is not much accessed by underground due to the fact its on harder bedrock:

Thus in other UK cities, although possible to build rail lines through the suburbs, going underground, anywhere wasn't cost effective enough due to the lack of clay. If they had densities such as Manhattan (built on solid granite, yet thoroughly riddled with tunnels) it would be worth it, but the reality isn't the case.

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Mr Bricks

· #20 · Apr 25, 2012

In mindset or architecture? Many British cities look very American, or rather many American cities look very British. However, I don't think anywhere in Europe is as sprawled and car oriented as many American cities are. British cities also tend to have older buildings and different street patterns.

The skylines of La Defense and Frankfurt look quite American as well.

When it comes to mindset I would nominate Stockholm and Copenhagen.

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