To what extent have/will European cities pursue car-centric development (metro, Munich)

[Taggerung]

We all know about how American cities had their urban cores destroyed and hollowed out to accommodate the automobile. Has or will the same happen in Europe? Of course, America has the most car dependent culture of any nation, but private car ownership is still extremely common in many European nations, and as far as I can tell it's only becoming more common.

[Minato ku]

Has the same happened in Europe ? It happened but mainly in the 1950s to 1970s and in a much more moderate way.
Will the same happen in the future ? No and the trend is the opposite. Reducing the space taken by cars in city core.

Land use has always been more valued in Europe, so the idea to destroy large part of the city just to built roads or parkings was more difficult.
Even in cities destroyed by the war, the idea to have large empty space just to park cars instead of buildings was seen (and is still seen) as an ineficient use of land.

Of course some big plaza were used as car park.

[recycled]

Its hard to generalize about "Europe" which contains 40+ countries.

After WW2 almost half of Europe up until 1990 was under one party communism with no emphasis on car-centric planning, because only a small percent of households owned cars. That includes the area that I am living in Leipzig, in the eastern part of Germany. I don't have a car here, and based on the large number of people riding bicycles, pedestrians, and on mass transit, I am guessing a significant number of adult residents don't own a car. The official city statics say there are 250,000 motor vehicles in a city of 600,000, but that includes all motor vehicles (trucks, buses, taxi, rental, car sharing, public owned, etc).

The reason I like this area is the excellent mass transit. There is no underground metro, aside from one recently opened heavy commuter rail tunnel connecting the main train station directly to the southern side of the metro area. Street cars rule in the central city and beyond on a 200 km network with 20+ lines, and heavy rail transit lines fan out in all directions. The terrain is gentle, and there are good routes for getting from A to B on a bicycle in all directions. At rush hour, it is almost shocking how little car traffic there is on many city streets.

If I want to get out of town, the main train station with 22 boarding platforms is in a massive, beautiful structure. Its not in the top 20 in Europe for passengers, but one of the biggest is size and awe inspiring for train fans like me. High speed trains can get me to Berlin in less than 90 minutes, Frankfurt in 3+ hours and Hamburg or Munich in 4 hours. Countless other destinations are with day trip distance. As a retiree, I don't get bored.

[Veritas Vincit]

They did build wide avenues in the East too, mostly for parades and to allow for quick movement of armored troops.

With regard to the question - European cities are more likely to ban cars outright in the near future than to focus any planning on them.

[Foamposite]

Medium to large Euro cities do not seem to cater much to drivers, nor do they seem to be headed in that direction.

Even the postwar architecure in Berlin doesn't seem to be car centric, unlike 50s to 00s NYC.