alt Hacker News> In the 1900s every city was walkable. Most cities had trains of some sort for the majority of transport and bikes or horses for the last mile.
Not the "last mile". The _only_ mile. Cities were so walkable that London had multiple distinct local accents because people were living their entire lives in one neighborhood, venturing outside only for special occasions.
This changed only with the invention of electric trams that allowed people to relatively cheaply move around. Technically, horse-driven trams were invented a bit earlier but they never got built at scale.
In London trains came in 30-40 years before electric trams. So trains were the driving force.
See the Underground for an example.
Might even be 70 years see the London-Greenwich railway for the first instance.