I live in Belgium, originally from The Netherlands. Both countries are essentially build up like this: city center - suburban stretch - city center with farm land in between. There is virtually no real nature to be found in both countries with the exception of a small part of southern Belgium. What natural parks we have are basically large artificial plots of nature. Every single inch of these countries is managed beyond belief.
Want to enjoy the few plots of land that are deemed ‘nature’? So do the 30 million other people living here. The most remote part in The Netherlands is a point at which you are, hold your hats, 11 km removed from the nearest road. A two and a half hour hike at best.
It’s suffocating. There are people everywhere, all the time. You can hear cars at any point in these countries. There is no natural silence. It drives me nuts.
When I was there (probably including several of the places you mentioned), one thing I thought was nice was that there was a sort of commons in place. Within walking distance for working-class people, there was woods that people wouldn’t litigate you for walking on.
It’s wild to see how western and central Europe were even more razed and leveled a few decades ago, and the cities even more choked with cars than today.
The expansion of lawn and field across every possible hectare is a plague upon the Earth, though. We really don’t need to stuff the planet as full as we can with people.
I agree with your last comment but there are people who get very upset when you say it out loud and when you ask them why they get especially angry.