Ever since ditching car culture and joining the urbanist cause (on the internet at least but that has to change), I’ve noticed that some countries always top the list when it comes to good urbanism. The first and most oblivious one tends to be The Netherlands but Germany and Japan also come pretty close. But that’s strange considering that both countries have huge car industries. Germany is (arguably) the birthplace of the car (Benz Patent-Motorwagen) and is home to Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Japan is home to Toyota, Honda, Nissan and among others. How is it that these countries have been able to keep the auto lobby at bay and continue investing in their infrastructure?
Lol, have you been to Germany? It’s not a concrete hellscape like some of the US, but it’s very car centric if you compare it to e.g. Denmark or Netherlands.
Edit: also, German car lobby is powerful, that’s why their highways are free to use and constantly maintained and kept at a high quality. Trains on the other hand are constantly being delayed and have to slow down due to bad rail quality