US vs Dutch Suburbs: Which is Better?

Some people have asked me to make a video directly comparing a US suburb to a European suburb, so here we are.
And it was even worse than I thought.

[MrCalls]

One thing you didn’t point out.
Is I didn’t see any Americans in your video. Even in the outdoor seating for the restaurant.
For the Netherlands, I’m not sure there were any street view positions where you’d couldn’t stay still and rotate and find people.
That’s a great demonstration of how hostile design is. America is not a habitat for humans, the Netherlands is.

[MrMartinNeumann]

For everyone who thinks they would hate living in multi-unit housing in the Netherlands. Keep in mind that construction is different there. Houses are significantly better sound isolated (mostly a side effect from general insulation and being built from stone/concrete). I live in a 2 story apparent block with a large shared inner yard you tend to only hear your neighbors if you and them have the windows open.

[eaxEA]

It's paradoxical that US is praised as a place of freedom while having the strictest land zone codes.

[BobWitlox]

By calling Weesp (or other European towns) a suburb, you're looking at it through an American lens. Just because it's near a big city doesn't make it a suburb. These are towns that have existed for centuries and grew organically separately from the neighbouring city. This sets it apart from the US. So it's a bit like apples and oranges. Towns like Weesp grew around an historic center. It's not built for people who want to live close to Amsterdam. The fact that shops and restaurants are located closer to where people live throughout the towns and cities is still a valid point though.

[ephedrales]

We need John Carpenter to make a movie call "Escape from Suburbia" where the protagonist must save the president of the USA who has fallen on bike in the middle of suburbia. I would watch that.

[ivsportiv]

For us, the biggest difference is the level of independence our infrastructure is for kids. We live in the Netherlands and our kids can visit their friends, do sports, go to the grocery store from a young age. Whenever we are in the US (we have family there), they feel really trapped not being able to go somewhere by themselves, especially now that they are teenagers.

[BamBamGT]

You forgot the biggest difference imo: the small businesses. I live just outside a city centre, and you find them throughout every neighborhood: A bakker, a butcher, a convenience store, a pharmacy. a family doctor. And just random small businesses. Like there's a dermatology practice 200 meters from my door. a psychologist working from her house a few houses from me, a bike repair shop, barber shop.

[Arjay]

In the Netherlands if there is a neighborhood then there very likely is a supermarket in the middle of it, often times multiple ones that compete against each other and if there is a supermarket and then because people are going to be shopping there, there's also going to be small take away (with limited seating) restaurant (again multiple ones, one is a fries and meat restaurant, one is a pizza shop another is a Chines restaurant, then there is also very likely a hair salon, oh and also a post office/bookstore. The great thing is that all these shops have the customer base to support them because of how dense the housing is.

You do also have those really big stores, even with a lot of parking (though nowhere near the same amount as the US), but those are usually a bit outside of the city in their own area, that's where you find furniture stores, hardware stores, car dealerships, you know the types of stores that you don't need in your every day life, but only occasionally.

[ernstlisman]

@18:33 FYI, these places you're calling suburbs are actually cities with more history in them than the average state of the US.
Except for Almere, which could be seen as an actual modern suburb of Amsterdam, as the land it's on was sea until about half a century ago.

[Semmy]

If there are no bike lines or seperated bikelines on the street, this can mean 2 things here in the Netherlands. 1. the road is build for 30km/h or less 2. the street design is only changed in 20 to 30 years. Otherwise the costs would be too expensive

[jeffreyroberson]

Peter you are completely correct, I was stationed in the Netherlands for 4yrs, their cities( suburbs) are more convenient then most US cities.
Shopping, museums, bars are a bicycle ride away, or a quick tram ride to get to them.

[Youve_GotABeard]

I love this channel and how he is continually bringing to light how underwhelming and soul destroying suburban life is in America - where most Americans grow up at least, and experience their lives - in comparison to most places in Europe.

As an American who moved away and settled in Europe fifteen years ago, I count my blessings every day for the privilege of being able to live here. I would never move back.

[cccpredarmy]

I live in a German village very close to french border. In fact those are 2 villages connected with about 2500 inhabitants in total. We have 2 supermarkets - one discount/cheap prices, the other more expensive with its own bakery and cafe. We also have a family-bakery and a family-butcher store close to the center of the village. About 3 restaurants I can name out of my head, if i'm not mistaken they serve rather traditional german dishes there. We also have a train station and about 3 bus stops spread across both villages with about 5 different buses going in any direction you want.
The "urban center" or idk how to call it... "government center" of this whole area with its various smaller villages is considered a "town" with 4500 inhabitants only. Practically a "bigger village". Yet when you go there it's like visiting a real small scale city, with its own industrial area, central streets with restaurants, shops and drug stores.
ALL of the villages are connected by VERY BEAUTIFUL bike/hiking roads, right between the mountains, which run parallel to the car roads, yet they are on average about 100 meters away from each other. When you bike or hike through them you never get the expereince of being bothered by car noise and you can enjoy your trip fully.
And here comes the kicker: the villages and even the central "town" only consist of one-family houses with very few exceptions. In center the houses are sometimes "connected". I mean their walls touch but you can still clearly see that those are all different one-family houses.
And yes you can still easily drive your bike everywhere since it has side walks.
My point is: there is literally no excuse for building shitty car-dependend suburbs. If you want a good suburb - build it like central european villages!

[robertboender]

Think you're forgetting to mention that US system makes it really hard to maintain the infrastructure. Infrastructure is paid and maintained by taxes people pay and if you spread out buildings you get more infrastructure and less tax income to maintain it all.

[badaboom]

This video shows very well the differences. I drove cars my entire life, living in France, England, Ireland and the US (10 years Colorado and Texas) and since I moved to the Netherlands in 2014 I am primarily using my bike for day to day activities. I was not using my car much so I got rid of it 6 years ago and now only own a bike. If I need a car I just rent one or use services like greenwheels which has cars all over the city to be picked up for an hour or a day, you just need the an app and a phone... Most of the shops I need are 3 min walk and 8 min bike ride for the outdoor market during the weekend...
I will likely buy a car when I retire back in France but I am not looking forward to that part and will likely look for a place where biking will still be part of my daily routine. The american suburb will need some serious rethinking, not only in those super-rich zones but in the low- amd medium-income new developments. Making those changes is not rocket sciences, just copy some success stories in the US or Europe and see how it goes...

[Conclusius]

Living in the area, I have visited Weesp many times and I can confirm, it is a beautiful town, well worth a visit as a tourist (and not overcrowded with other tourists, like Amsterdam). A couple of remarks on your video. Weesp only officially became a suburb of Amsterdam in 2022. It has been its own municipality for centuries. This is important, because it was never designed as a suburb. Weesp already got city rights in 1355, granting it the right to build its own city walls. It used to be part of a series of fortifications around Amsterdam in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. If you take a look at the map again, you can see the river Vecht bending around the city center, creating a watery barrier around the old city fortifications. In those days, everything was walkable, because it had to be. Other than horses and boats, there was no other mode of transportation. Every development was mixed use. The city design reflects that history. This is true for lots of suburbs in the Netherlands and all over Europe, most of which have been inhabited since before AD 1000. All of these suburbs already had walkable cores and mixed use developments, from which they expanded in the 20th century. It is a bit sad to know that American cities and most suburbs also started as towns and villages that had every amenity within walking distance. Lots started along railway lines. According to Wikipedia, Woodbury, Min. was founded in 1844. If I were to visit Woodbury as a tourist, my first question would be where all the historic buildings went. It must have had a historic heart.

[r.a.]

Omg, as an European citizen, I experience a crossing such a road in USA, I was terrified ! Because there wasn’t sidewalks, I though that I’m doing something illegal but I didn’t had a car and I didn’t knew what to experience back then ! And I just wanted to have a cup of coffee in the only one Starbucks that was 40 minutes walking from the house I used to live …

[BrokenCurtain]

From Wikipedia:
"Until the early Middle Ages the region around Weesp was an uninhabited peat bog. Weesp (Wesopa in Latin documents) was granted city rights in 1355 and celebrated its 650th anniversary as a city in 2005."

That place was around before Columbus sailed to America.

BTW, you can easily spot the city centre just by looking at that map: it's the part almost or fully enclosed by waterways, which were part of the city's defences. There's even an old fortress on one of those two islands.

Sometimes, you can also see European cities that have a very distinctive, crown-shaped green belt, like Coevorden, Emden, Bremen, Hamburg or Gdańsk. Those are the old bastions that were razed and replaced by parks. On the inside are the city centres where you can find the town halls, museums, 1000 year-old universities, cathedrals and so on.

[alex]

As a Dutchman, I think you hit the nail on the head when comparing the differences. And the two main reasons I think are that our roads are designed to treat biking as a first class mode of transport (which ties nicely into our public transport being a lot more accessible), and our housing is a bit denser (less detached housing).

Let me describe my trip to the supermarket. Keep in mind that I think I live fairly far away from the supermarket (for Dutch standards at least).

I get on my bike, and I bike out of the street where I live. It's a road that's fairly narrow and it's physically impossible to drive a car fast, but for bikes that's not a problem whatsoever. Then, I turn into a multi use pathway that goes through a park where you can often see people walking with their kids or their dogs. I cross a bridge across a small pond and cycle through a couple of other streets where people live, passing several playgrounds where you can often see children playing. I cross a road where, again, traffic is forced to be calm, and I can even get off my bike a cross a zebra crossing (which gives me the right of way since I'm a pedestrian if I'm not riding my bike). Then I walk across a nice sidewalk, park my bike in bike parking that's directly in front of the store, and I'm there. Total trip time, about 5 minutes. Number of roads crossed: 1 (or maybe 2 depending on how you count), both designed for my safety as well.

I can go by car as well. Most of the trip goes across one interconnecting street that ties all of the sort-of cul de sacs together, and the maximum speed limit there is 30 km/h (and the road is designed so it's hard to go faster than that). This road also feels completely safe to bike on by the way, due to the traffic calming measures. I turn onto a road where I can go 50km/h, and this street has a separate bike path. Then a while later I turn off the street, into the parking lot, and I try to find a place to park somewhat close to the entrance. I still have to walk about a minute, but it's doable and more convenient if you have to do a lot of groceries. But it's very clear that it isn't intended to be the default.

These videos made me realize that these surroundings didn't come about by chance, but rather through deliberate design which came after intense public pressure (because the Netherlands was on the same car dominated trajectory as the US), and just how nice it really is to be able to enjoy your surroundings.

[SwirlingSoul]

What we have in NL, is a mutually beneficial relationship between commercial and residential. Residents use the commerce, and the commerce uses the residents. If both make it easy and comfy for one another, both benefit. I do not understand why the USA caters to CARS over PEOPLE. PEOPLE hold a wallet, cars don't.