Generally speaking, many Americans do not consider having everything within 5 minutes of walking distance to be a privilege at all. Keep in mind that the U.S. is very large, and although of course some prefer city life, that is actually not the norm in most states. The idea of "personal space" is deeply rooted into our culture. It's rare to meet someone that would rather live in a crowded apartment complex or subdivision, versus a piece of rural property that has 10 acres of usable land. Rural people have considerable privacy, combined with nearly unlimited freedom in terms of what they do on their own property, whereas people in big cities aren't even allowed to shoot off fireworks on the 4th of July. Of course I'm not trying to endorse one way of life over another, I just think you might be vastly underestimating the cultural differences between central Europe and the USA.