To be fair, for Rochester that's an exceedingly small city core zone of a few square blocks that is interconnected like that. You're driving from where you live to that zone for 99% of the people working there.
The rest of the city is basically giant soulless suburb. I've had friends who have lived there for close to a decade now.
Though interconnection isn't common there are a number of older small cities in the Northeast with walkable, revitalized downtowns. I worked in downtown Nashua NH for a number of years and there were plenty of little restaurants, places you could run various errands, and so forth.
But the nice area was really only a handful of blocks in each direction. And beyond that you are in mostly rundown post-industrial mill town and beyond that it is very spread out.
The rest of the city is basically giant soulless suburb. I've had friends who have lived there for close to a decade now.