There's the related fact that, in the middle decades of the 20th century, Western European political decision makers wanted to do things "the American way", and if that meant setting up urban freeways, that was seen as the price of progress. For example, Louis Pradel, long-serving mayor of Lyon, decided to have a freeway run right into the city center because that's how the Americans do it.
Nothing like a freeway interchange to embellish a boring old medieval city center.
yea, and that's something that wasn't universal-Italy didn't have much, and a lot of other western Euro cities just didn't have the money to build these. Which goes to I think the longer lag between "car culture being introduced" and "first time it stopped working well" meaning there was less path-dependence towards cars.
