I think it's partly about status.
In Europe, the poor and the immigrants live in the suburbs. The city is for the cool, well-to-do rich. I actually knew one in Paris. She was the mistress of a very rich man. She lived with her daughter near the Bois de Boulogne in a modern apt building, and she occupied a very luxurious 2 bedroom apt.
[WS:] Actually it is both. Cities have also slums, and suburbs have rich residential areas. IMHO, the roots are in the different history of economic development in Europe and the US.
I think the prominence and popularity of cities in Europe has something to do with the historical evolution of power relations. In Europe, cities grew as autonomous power centers in the middle ages, basically against the power of feudal landlords. They housed self-governing producers (guilds) of most technologically advanced goods, and centers of trade. This combination of self-governance structures and wealth translated into political power accumulation, which in turn made European cities desirable for almost everyone. After that, there was a classical example of path dependence - older development attracting new development of a similar kind.
In the US, by contrast, the power historically resided in the country side - which is reflected inter alia by the location of state capitals away from the urban centers like New York, Philadelphia or Baltimore. Two main historical reasons for that is the immigrant nature of the early US population, consisting mainly of poor peasants that had no appreciation of the urban life or even run away from it (e.g. the Amish), and expansionist policies of the US government, which encouraged Caucasian settlement in the rural Mid-west and the displacement of the Native population from that land. Land speculators profiteering from railroad development also contributed to this process.
In any case, the US bout with urbanism is only about 100 years from the mid 1880s to the mid 1990s (which is very short by most standards), so the desirability did not get ingrained into collective consciousness as it did in Europe. Add to it land speculators - then and now - and auto manufactures who financially benefit from pushing people farther and farter away from the cities, hinterland Podunks competing to attract manufacturers and developer by offering them tax breaks and kickbacks, the lack of urban services caused by tax "relief" policies - and it is no surprise that the US is dominated by provincial suburbanism and the population loves it.
Wojtek
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