>>2023075First, nearly EVERY American city was built before cars. They had wide streets and avenues for primarily horse-and-buggy traffic.
Secondly, you're looking at it from the lens of modern European cities. Amsterdam's bicycle lanes were a conscious decision made in the late 1970s and is generally the exception rather than the rule. The other thing you're missing is that for almost every European cities, the dense, narrow backroads were where the city's poor lived.
In fact, even if you look at European cities, once you get out of the medieval city centers, the layout of the roads and streets change dramatically to more grid-like patterns.
