I really don't know why languages like C, Java or JavaScript started to allow variable definitions everywhere. Needing to declare variables first leads to much cleaner functions.
But Python's leaky scopes are even worse than up-front declarations.
When you start to have a screen height full of variable-declaration, you start thinking: "Maybe I should refactor this." Inline variables conceal that a bit.
C89 allowed you to declare variables at the top of any block, not just functions, so you could declare variables that only exist within in if block. For example:
if (flag) {
int c;
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) {
/* code */
}
}