>>Now for our readers from most of the rest of the world - sidewalks in most of the USA are there because there's a city bylaw that requires them to be built. But you'll never see them worn out (except in big cities downtown). Nobody's walking. Running, maybe, jogging still has some diehard advocates, but not walking. Not alone. With a dog. Or you may get observed by a neighborhood watch, or a police patrol, and maybe become very suspect, depending on how you look and where you are.
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>Maybe where you live. In my neighborhood, there are often people walking, even on my street that has no sidewalks.

It's getting better here - at least there are kids in the alley, and it seems to be that there are a few people regularly visiting each other, so there's some pedestrians. But the other day I drove my bike about one mile to drop a package, and met a total of one other biker and two pedestrians. And I live in a residential area next to a mall. And one of the reasons we moved from C'ville is that VBeach has the boardwalk, where you really can walk and see other people.

But it's also making the difference more obvious: you had to come up with an exception to make the case that not all sidewalks here are empty (which they still mostly are), while over there by default there's always people on the street. I've been there last summer, and I met most of the people I wanted to meet by just walking into them at random.

Same goes for Hungary - when I worked there, after only three months there I started seeing people I know on the main street.

It's just a different lifestyle. Most of Europe (at least central and south) lives on its streets.