As a north american, I found this odd initially; but came to really appreciate it given all the excellent options for eating nearby!
I can imagine that people who have grown up in walkable neighborhoods, would find a totally car-based lifestyle annoying. But how will those people feel who have made the move in the opposite direction? If someone moves from e.g. Texas to e.g. NYC or London, will they feel restricted or liberated when they walk, and use the metro? Or will they try to keep driving everywhere?
At my previous residence going to the library meant a ten-minute drive, which wasn't so bad, and now it was a three-minute walk. (Interestingly I just realized that I usually lived about a ten-minute drive from the libraries near where I lived, back in Japan) I guess I could say I felt more liberated, almost like I was part-owner of the downtown space, and it was no longer a destination that I felt I had to plan to visit. The car no longer felt so necessary-though I still used it--and riding my bicycle felt like more of a natural fit.
There is a lake with swimming beach in summer and a forest which is around 10 minutes walk. These are all the things which are truly priceless. And I wish everyone sometimes in their lives experience this, how much good it is to walk to do almost everything you want.
So in Texas where driving may be affordable, necessary because there is no alternative, frictionless because businesses buy huge plots for car parking and perhaps slightly cheaper and more ubiquitous gas stations, a car makes sense. Particularly in an environment where everyone has one and we tend to want to conform.
Then take Amsterdam (where I live). Most amenities are nearby, walking distance. Separate bike lanes on every single street. Everyone uses bikes. Parking is crap (canal parking is a nightmare) and expensive, as are cars and gas compared to rather ubiquitous tram, bus and metro service and a strong intercity train network. A car is more expensive, gives more friction, and wholly unnecessary.
The exception is if you work far outside the city. Train is fine but a personal car can be a bit more dependable and more flexible despite a nice train system.
In short, I think it makes a lot of sense to expect say a stereotypical Texan to be fine not having or needing a car in say a city like Amsterdam. He certainly wouldn't feel restricted to walk or use public transportation, rather my point is, that he'd feel restricted having to use a car in a city not designed for cars. I can't imagine anyone driving everywhere in Amsterdam. (the far suburbs are perhaps the exception, what we call 'outside the ring', but even then italian-style scooters are more popular than cars here)
Walkability is the first preference, though, because of how nice it is, and how predictable it is in terms of timing.
It's insane. I want to leave any time I want, pull up in a vast parking lot less than a hundred yards from my destination, my GPS guiding me every turn of the way, and get there in air conditioned comfort without getting all sweaty from walking everywhere. I want to be able to go to any restaurant or shop within a 20 mile radius without thinking twice about it, instead of being constrained to a few places within walking distance. I want to be able to drive home a car overflowing with groceries from any store I care to visit instead of having to spread my shopping across every day of the week so that I can carry it home on the bus/train.
On the restricted/liberated spectrum, I feel strongly on the restricted side. You can't get anywhere in this city without paying, either for parking or public transport or an uber/lyft/taxi ride. I feel imprisoned within walking distance, unless I have a specific errand that justifies the price of a ride.
Two words: Google Maps.
I think bigger cities have a journey planner website and a mobile app to go with it. For example, here's the one for London: http://tfl.gov.uk/
Also, the trunk transport lines (they can be metro, train or buses) should go every 10 minutes, or every 5 minutes, so one does not need a timetable to use them.
Copenhagen has mostly converged on that: the metro, trains, and trunk bus routes now mostly run 24/7, with the same route all the time, and high enough frequency that you don't have to worry about when they'll come and how to time connections (typically 2-7 minute headways during the day, 15-20 minutes at night, 30 at night for some buses). Works well, though of course it isn't cheap to operate such a level of service. I definitely find it easier to take night buses now in particular, as they've been moving more of them to this schedule. It's something I do only occasionally so I'd never remember what the "N" night-bus routes were, but now it's easy, because the answer is that it's just the same "A" bus routes as always, not special night buses.
P.S. based on the short amount of time I've spent in Texas I would rank it as one of the most horrible places I've visited on the face of this planet. I cannot comprehend how anyone would voluntarily live there. The same goes for anywhere (including suburban Australia) with vast expanses of low density housing. You have all of the bad parts of living in a city (low privacy, crime, lack of natural spaces) with none of the good (proximity to services, cultural density, high quality mass transit, entertainment etc).
Later on, I moved into the city, and though I loved some aspects of it, there were others I hated. Walking everywhere within a few blocks was great for example. We could actually think about where we wanted to eat while we were in the process of walking out the door and after we started feeling hungry! (mindblowing)
But other aspects simply sucked. Mass transit, in general, is terrible in most of the U.S. To get to the local subway (so I could get to work) from our apartment, I had 3 choices:
1) A 5 minute drive
2) A 30+ minute walk over sometimes unsafe walking areas (overpass with no sidewalk, couple other muddy/dirty no-sidewalk areas)
3) An hour long bus ride with two transfers. The buses never kept to schedule so a 20 minute wait to get on and at each transfer wasn't uncommon.
Once I got on the train, it was a pretty easy 45 minute ride with 1 transfer and then an easy 15 minute walk from the station to my office.
So say I wanted to take mass transit to get to work. I'm looking at up to ~3 hours 1 way. If everything clicks into place, it's still a minimum ~2 hour ride 1 way. These days we have google to help us find a route, and a quick check of my old route shows an approximately 1.5-2 hour commute via mass transit.
If I cut the trip to the subway down by driving, I'd either have to pay for parking (~$10/day) or get a ride from my wife.
If I walked, I'd probably get my work clothes (suit) dirty and endanger myself.
The alternative, to just drive into the office was a 1 hour drive with a $20/day parking fee.
The public transit experience sucked so bad, and consumed so much of my day, that I eventually just opted to drive myself in. I at least had the flexibility during the day to go places I couldn't walk to for lunch.
This wasn't NYC however. I've spent a few weeks here and there in NYC for work and pleasure, and almost always I just take the subway. I don't go to the outer boroughs much, and when I do I've never strayed far from a subway station -- I'm sure If I bothered to integrate the bus system into my life I'd be even happier. When I was in London, I did exactly that and the integrated system worked great (even if it was expensive). edit btw, does anybody else think it's weird NYC hasn't integrated either airport into the subway system?
I find the experience in NYC generally really good. I've done the same in London, Seoul, Barcelona and Paris and the only times I wish I had a car was when I was shopping and had to haul a bunch of groceries home on the local subway. In other cities more like where I live, with similar levels of service, I usually just use a car.
I was recently in Orlando and we decided to use the local bus system instead of a car. It was...okay. But bus service was so infrequent that if you missed your transfer you'd easily wait another 30-45 minutes for the next bus.
So to me there's kind of an uncanny valley mass transit falls into. If it's hyper dense like NYC, I think it's fantastic. The need for a car just isn't there most of the time, and it's cheap enough and the service is frequent enough that you don't end up standing around doing nothing for 30 minutes and hopefully don't have to make a half dozen transfers. There's a few cases where I really want a car, but you usually end up rethinking how your life functions and end up getting rid of lots of those (more frequent shopping and smaller groceries), but some are a still a pain (big packages). Fortunately, services like Zipcar (or just calling a cab) usually fills in those gaps.
However, most places are not ultra-large, ultra-dense first world cities and building a comparable system in those smaller cities just isn't economically feasible in general. Bus systems are too complicated compared to trams or trains, and without knowing your entire route and schedule ahead of time are hard to impossible to figure out off the cuff, and frequent stops means it takes forever to get anywhere. So even if they have the appearance of a robust mass transit system, practically they don't function in the same way a Tokyo or NYC or Paris does.
So I found it cool that was possible to live where I live, and do it without a car, but it's also possible in the sens that L.A. and NYC are within "walkable" distance from each other if you don't mind walking for 38 days nonstop.
note
today I live in a new style suburb. My house is an easy 5-10 minute walk to a pretty large array of shopping, restaurants, entertainment and services. Comparable to what you'd likely find within an easy 5-10 minute walk in most urban environments. I haven't taken my car shopping at my local grocery in about 2 months. My doctor, a movie theater, etc. are all walkable. There's a commuter bus lot in my neighborhood as well and for not too much money, I can take it into the city, it takes special lanes much of the way and turns a 2 hour drive into a 45 minute bus ride with a 20 minute easy walk.
I'm also a 20 minute drive from the nearest subway stop and the line is expanding in my direction. Hopefully in a few years it'll be a 5-10 minute drive, giving me tons of transit options.
So I kind of get the best of both worlds.
For LaGuardia, it's basically NIMBYism.
JFK has the AirTrain connections to the subway and LIRR. Why that, why not just an actual subway? Bureaucratic turf expansion - the airports are owned by the Port Authority who has deep pockets and wanted to build a system under its own control.
Being a NYC lifer, I always forget that's not normal - in other cities I'm always surprised to realize when the airport is smoothly integrated into the transit system.
I am pretty sure Brno, Czech Republic or Brandenburg, Germany are not wealthier per capita than Orlando and somehow they managed to build a decent transit system despite being much smaller towns.
EDIT: I just checked on wikipedia and Brandenburg an der Havel has a bit over 1/3 the population density of Orlando so it's definitely not a density issue. Wiki doesn't have density figures for Brno but it seemed comparable to Orlando.
I always assumed those closed stores were just a sign of bad economy or dwindling population and I am not completely convinced that that is the real reason, but this was explained to me as one major reason according to someone working in a project where they try to convince these building owners to let younger people use the space for their small business.
It's in contrast to modern development trends you're seeing in NA - seems like almost all new commercial development is in the form of large parking lots + big box brands & international franchises in the same layout configurations give or take a liquor store or restaurant or two.
I was thinking about this the other day, how wasteful these mega-lot developments are - given all the other existing areas of a city that could be utilized & improved. Instead, you rarely see new commercial investment in older areas and slowly and surely parts of a city become ignored and deteriorate. If a neighborhood is lucky, investment may someday return - but usually in the form of an artificially incentivized (ie- tax/political) effort. Things might just naturally balance out and be less wasteful if small business was as pervasive as it is in Japan; thanks in large part to their zoning system.