I lived in Berlin for a while. Most people don't own a car in Berlin. Not because of poverty, but because the city is walkable (you can walk from one side to the other in an afternoon, it's a lovely thing to do on a summer's day). Your metric of "own more cars" is not incorrect, just irrelevant. It's like saying that Europeans are wealthier because they are more likely to have a passport.
Likewise for "substantially larger houses". This is just not a relevant metric - Europeans generally live in denser cities, with more apartment living, more cycling, more parks. That's a preference. It's got nothing to do with wealth. Europeans don't have smaller houses because they can't afford them, but because they prefer living in smaller, denser, more walkable cities.
It's interesting because I have been to many walkable places in southeast Asia with extremely cheap collective taxis, but even then most extended families have a small motorbike so they can visit another village without all the bother of begging/renting/borrowing.
Yeah, I have lived in SE Asia too, and I think the reason is public transport - in Berlin there are two train systems, trams, and buses. You can get anywhere cheaply, safely, and relatively quickly. In SE Asia there's usually tuk-tuks, sometimes taxis, and that's it. And owning a moped is a lot cheaper than taking a tuk-tuk every time. Owning a car is a lot more expensive than taking the u-bahn every time.
> It's like saying that Europeans are wealthier because they are more likely to have a passport.
It’s not like that as we were discussing tangible measures of wealth. Can you provide any evidence that Europeans are materially wealthier than Americans? That is, that Europeans earn, own, and / or consume more than Americans?
But I don´t want to "consume" more than Americans. I want to eat healthy food in reasonable quantities and maintain a sensible weight.
I don´t want to own a car and drive 2 hours to work every day, and consume more car ownership - I want to cycle or walk, and stay fit and enjoy the sun.
You see the mistake you're making?
I lived in the US for 6 years, and could have stayed. It was an easy decision to go back to Europe.
My point was that your metrics (more cars, bigger houses) are as invalid as my metric (more passports) because Europeans have fewer cars and smaller houses as a choice, not because of poverty. Like Americans have fewer passports because they choose not travel internationally, not because they can't afford to.
Likewise for "substantially larger houses". This is just not a relevant metric - Europeans generally live in denser cities, with more apartment living, more cycling, more parks. That's a preference. It's got nothing to do with wealth. Europeans don't have smaller houses because they can't afford them, but because they prefer living in smaller, denser, more walkable cities.