Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like this is a chicken and egg problem. In many western cities - and I won't name names - the downtown area is not pleasant due to anti-social behaviour. So even when they do make it walkable, I don't want to walk there, I'd rather drive to a suburban mall and reduce my chances of an altercation. Until that's fixed it's a non-starter.
Is this a problem that America has generally? I.e there are areas where most people are scared to walk through in every city? I know many parts of the world have problems like this, but Europe doesn’t have many places like that.
I wouldn’t say danger and unpleasantness are the same thing here. Every decently sized city has higher and lower crime rate areas. Locals tend to be more sensitive to this than tourists and the higher crime areas often have their own charms, because the crime isn’t really visible. True unpleasantness is only found in a few notable cities, is very visible, and both locals and tourists avoid it or have developed a coping framework or take a mission-based approach to their encounters with it. But those unpleasant areas don’t necessarily come with a greater chance of mugging or stray bullet shooting or auto part theft.