Thanks for the response. I really don't know much about the UK so I appreciate all those examples!
However, even if WW2 is a red herring, I don't think you can compare Europe and the US to each other because the US is a single country under one government and Europe is a group of very individualistic countries that don't always cooperate well. This is just my theory, but any single country in Europe has the ability to change their countries infrastructure much more easily than the US (or any city in it) because the entire country's resources can be more easily bent toward it.
Furthermore, those areas of many century-old buildings in Europe are /probably/ not located in the most economically advanced city/countries and therefore falls out of my initial comparison of the US versus the major economies/countries today.
However, even if WW2 is a red herring, I don't think you can compare Europe and the US to each other because the US is a single country under one government and Europe is a group of very individualistic countries that don't always cooperate well. This is just my theory, but any single country in Europe has the ability to change their countries infrastructure much more easily than the US (or any city in it) because the entire country's resources can be more easily bent toward it.
Furthermore, those areas of many century-old buildings in Europe are /probably/ not located in the most economically advanced city/countries and therefore falls out of my initial comparison of the US versus the major economies/countries today.