In China it’s easy to afford rent in most of the cities on a full time minimum wage job, and the cities are extremely walkable. My wife lives in a 18 story building, and immediately outside of her development are at least 6 supermarkets, 20 restaurants and countless bus stations and subway stations. Sounds like it’s more of a problem with the economic system than the city itself.

Europe's city centers are friggin expensive, if you know what I'm talking about you know. The suburbs are usually fine, also some of the best paces ever are between the suburbs and the center. Locals in the old town will make you pay for the oxygen they have in

I think I only ever lived in the real "center" of a city once when I was crashing at a friends place while looking for an apartment.

All of my other places have been further out in neighborhoods outside of the center but there were still shops everywhere. Single use zoning and the tendency to obsess over shitty copypaste single family homes is the real culprit in the US.