American cities have largely followed a model of highly expansive and low-density urban development. With the rise of the automotive industry and investments in the road and highway network, suburban housing became the archetype of the American way of life, with homes amidst vast green areas, located increasingly farther from the foundational urban centers and business and service cores. Aerial View of Los Angeles. Source: Cory Doctorow As a result of this process, the metropolitan areas of the United States have a population density (inhabitants/square kilometer) lower than cities of comparable sizes in other continents around the world. The following graphic compares the five largest metropolitan areas in Europe and the United States. Own elaboration. Data source: Demographia World Urban Areas Report The difference is even more drastic when compared to the largest metropolises in Asia. As seen in the next figure, the most comparable Asian metropolitan area to the American cases is
Public mass transit systems are part of the everyday landscape of most major cities around the world. From the ultra-efficient train network of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area to the congested rail lines of Sao Paulo, metro systems move millions of people daily, making inter-city mobility more efficient and reducing travel times within cities and metropolitan regions. Sao Paulo Metro. Source: US News Since the opening of the first underground network in London in 1863, more than 200 metro systems have been built around the world. Beijing currently has the largest metro network in terms of length and daily ridership (807 km in length and 10.5 million trips per day). Other major metro systems are located in New York, Shanghai, Seoul, Moscow and Guangzhou. Despite the accelerated construction of metro systems since the mid-20th century, there are large urban areas in the world that are not currently served by metro services. Some of them have implemented alternative systems such as BRT (Bus R