American cities are designed for cars. Not people or people on bikes.
You would think that new developments would not continue this insanity and yet they are still allowed by city planners to cut corners.
I went to a college in the suburbs of Long Island and the road outside campus was a two-lane road with a speed limit of 55 with no sidewalks. To walk outside of the cities is to invite death.
And this is before we get into things like the lack of adequate marked, signalized crosswalks that are common throughout America: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/17/between-your-bus-stop...
I've spent nearly all my life in (Northern) California and Nevada, though, so YMMV elsewhere.
Sidewalks, signals, and crosswalks all give the illusion of safety. Either the cars are behaving well and you can just step aside, or they are misbehaving and you'll need a concrete barrier to stop them. The signals and crosswalks mean that cars are revving their engines near me, making the air I breathe worse, so I'd rather do without.
