I think there’s an element of “the grass is greener” here.
“The city itself was the exhibit, and you could just wander around and see these incredible lights” is a fair description of a lot of neighborhoods in the US around Christmas time, if you think about it.
Though I do think that street festivals probably only happen in areas where there are a lot of pedestrians around. That’s going to be your older, more walkable, downtowns, like New York or San Francisco, more than places like LA or the suburbs.
The Mediterranean climate in some parts of Europe might have something to do with it, too. Mediterranean climates are characterized by warm, dry summers and cool, wet winters. You have a summer when there’s reliably nice weather and not much chance of rain. That means your outdoor festival is less likely to get rained out. California also has this type of climate. Outdoor festivals are common in the SF Bay area.
Mostly because over centuries the reasons for everyone partying down have gained more importance than the actual act of overeating, getting drunk, and stupid. The existence of the excuse is a important element in societies with long standing traditions.
Here in the USA we except such excuses as Friday. Or “Oh, look, a bar.”
The Mummers Parade- Straight men dress up in costumes weighing fifty pounds, covered in thousand of dollars of ostrich plumes and sequins and do fabulous musical numbers.
The Henri (pronounced Henry) David Ball- I never saw people who loved Halloween as much as I do until I attended the ball. Some of the costumes involve car batteries, adaptors and custom neon signs.
If you want a case of the residents of a U.S. city creating a festival for themselves that has become famous, how about Baltimore’s “Miracle on 34th Street”?
The annual Fourth of July procession of really big farm machinery in every court-house town in the American Midwest. Carnival in Mainz can’t hold a candle to it.
I was already thinking of San Francisco as an exception to the general American pattern, and so is NYC–and all the older cities, and older parts of newer cities, like Hollywood in L.A. Everywhere else, it’s possibly our dependence on driving that discourages all out festivals and street celebrations. You don’t want to close a street for more than a day or two at the most, which means it’s not worth going overboard in decorations, atmosphere, and things like temporary bleachers, performance spaces, and so on. Also when most of the weekday workers live in suburbs that they have to drive to, the urge to let go and party hard is restrained, to say the least.
I think it’s history and culture too. To say the people who founded Boston and Philadelphia, the most important cities of colonial America, weren’t into festivals would be an understatement. Festivals in the old country were originally Catholic or Anglican feast days, and they weren’t into saints or the “-mas” feasts either. IIRC the Puritans banned Christmas celebrations.
IIRC South Street exists because of a law prohibiting public dancing in Philly. South street was built just outside city limits, and thus out of the law’s area of effect, and filled with bars.
It’s strange because one of our most celebrated Philidelphians, Ben Franklin, really knew how to party.