It sounds like you've never been outside of a city in Europe and never been to a city in the US? Urban population in the EU in 2018 is 76% while 82% for the same year in the US according to The World Bank.
Lived in Sweden for the last 15 years. Yeah, people out of cities have big back yards (people in cities have none), most workers eat out every day for lunch, shopping online (except for food) is pretty much the default. Denmark's pretty much the same.
I've lived in both, and you're missing how large the difference is. Not to mention you seem to be missing the point.
What the OP was saying is that americans don't eat out that much, is a very heavily home-oriented society - thats why the OP mentioned take out and delivery - not going out for lunch.
And yes people out of cities in nearly all countries have big backyards, but you are missing the people have big back yards in the US EVEN inside city limits. There are ofcourse the couple exceptions like NYC etc. but mostly even big cities have the weird suburban style houses even in the most expensive areas!
Guys, you are missing the point - these stereotypes, however true they might have been (or not), are over currently for Europe. Restaurants are empty or closed, people limit their social interaction and overall exposure to minimum. It doesn't matter much if we speak about Sweden or Italy or anything in between.
What will happen or won't in US or Europe is not anymore dependent on these behaviors.
Not sure how the backyard argument is relevant anyway. It's not like that makes not spreading the disease that much easier. Public transport is certainly a risk. But I'm not even sure if e-commerce helps. Going to Walmart at 1am and using self checkout is probably much safer than receiving your delivery from someone who might be infected and visits several hundred homes a day.
Got a citation for those numbers? Another poster claims that the US suburb population alone is 175M, and that's roughly half the country right there. Add in the rural population (46M), and 82% urban seems not even remotely correct.
Urban population in Europe also includes suburbs. Yes, there's less sprawl but enough people in Europe living in urban settings have backyards and reasonably large houses.
