Most US cities centers were not built to late, instead they were bulldozed for the car, those are 2 different things. The US used to have beautiful city centers and nice urban fabric around those centers.

> A lot of them were built with transportation in mind.

Complete nonsense, the Post-1945 push for suberbia had nothing to with 'transportation in mind', the reason they wanted it was totally different.

The reality is more that they pushed suberiba and only then realized the transportation problem it caused, and then they reacted with every increasing highway and stroad building.

> Technically they exist in US cities too, but especially on the west coast they're just not a viable alternative.

Its not an alternative because its either not funded or badly organized.

Its bad because the government doesn't care that its bad, its not actually a fundamental problem.