[ardecila]

Well, that's my point about the asphalt sidewalks... they're not cheap at all. I mean, they're not slapdash. They are chock-full of manicured street trees, tasteful benches, bike racks, and other street furniture.

I think the asphalt is just easier to maintain with tree roots and things, and easier to patch for utility cuts. The downsides to asphalt roads (potholes forming, heat deformation, etc) don't happen when you only have a bunch of pedestrians walking on the surface. Here in Chicago, asphalt paths in parks last for decades with minimal maintenance... the only drawback is that the edges will unravel unless you use metal edging.

As for post-WW2, I just don't buy a story where the public is the "victim" of suburbanization. The American Dream wasn't cooked up on Madison Avenue and it certainly wasn't an evil corporate plot. We chose it ourselves, decades before WW2. Mass suburbanization was already happening in the 1920s. Today we just call it the Bungalow Belt, or when it's further out in places like Wilmette or Arlington Heights, we drool over its tree-lined streets. The industrial approach to homebuilding after the war was just gasoline poured on a fire that had been smoldering during 20 years of depression and war.

I mean, the typical American city after WW2 was dysfunctional in a lot of ways. No maintenance or investment during depression and war, so roads were crumbling, parks were overgrown, transit systems were creaky. There was major pollution, buildings were literally jam-packed with coal dust and soil was inundated with leaded gasoline... and that's if you didn't live next to a factory or chemical plant. Old-school streetcar systems were hopelessly screwed by traffic jams and accidents they couldn't go around. If you were a typical racist white person, you had a major influx of African-Americans working wartime jobs and moving into your neighborhood to add to your list of grievances. The factors pushing (white) city-dwellers into the suburbs back then were just ridiculous.