People often hold up Europe as a model of what to do.

Two big things they have that we dont:
They started with more or less a clean sheet post WWII rebuild with a lot of it funded under the Marshall plan or it's Soviet equivalent.

Their cities and villages were mainly laid out pre vehicular transport and only the rich had horses. By the time the US expanded off the east coast, even a ever family usually had a mule, horse, or other beast of burden.

Also, population density. People forget how empty a lot of the US is. I drive from NJ to CA and back most years and once you get west of the Mississippi it gets pretty sparse outside of a large town every 20 miles.