This is… not accurate at all?

There seem to be several general misconception about European cities:

1) They’re millenia old. They’re not. They might have been founded in ancient times, but they’ve been rebuilt over and over again. Even the oldest parts of Europes cities aren’t from „ancient“ times (except for a few ruins of course), but a mixture of Gothic, Renaissance and baroque elements. Most of Europe is a mixture of late 19th century to modern day architecture.

2) That these cities have all been „naturally“ growing all the time. Most of what we see today was deliberately planned in the 19th century, e.g. Paris by Haussmann, Barcelona by Cerdà, Berlin by Hobrecht, and so on and so on. But that doesn’t mean earlier periods were just mindlessly building things, the Renaissance architects had a very concrete vision of a „Città ideale“.

3) That they were highly functioning in early times, just because they were „walkable“. The reason the major cities were completely overhauled in the late 19th century is because they were hell. In ancient Rome buildings were actually built quite tall and tight, having to climb ladders to reach your single room without a window was perfectly normal. They had massive issues with fires. All through the ages complete cities just burned to the ground because of one small outbreak. The sanitary conditions were abysmal, even in the 18th century people were just emptying their chamber pots out their windows directly on the street.