There is a difference between individual pollution and state level pollution though.
Germany may pollute the air/rivers less than China but come to Berlin; in some neighbourhoods you might think you teleported to a third world country where trash are simply threw in the streets to rot for weeks if not months before the public services finally do something.
The point these examples definitely prove is that within a single country it is possible to find extremes running both ways and that apparently city governments have a lot of impact on the appearance of the cities.
I was about to write that I visited Munich and other places in Bavaria last year and it was very clean, though there were a fair number of cigarette butts around, but nothing like what the OP was saying about Berlin.
Individualistic is a very kind, even positive term for that in my opinion. I would think if we called it a shithole city instead, they would be less inclined to act that way due to the shame.
> I don't see how this makes allocating carbon footprints any more accurate, nor does it indict "individuality" or any other ambiguous concepts.
I'm not sure what you are referencing in the first part of that sentence.
I was replying to "Your analysis falls apart with even a cursory search." which is false because it compares two things that are close but have no points of comparison. Heavily polluted asian rivers doesn't mean asians are more or less individualist and has nothing to do with the way they handle urban trash.
As I understand you can't even start asking these questions as it might show that they're linked to specific groups (be it income, ethnicity, whatever) and it's a big no-no in Germany as well as many other EU countries.
Germany may pollute the air/rivers less than China but come to Berlin; in some neighbourhoods you might think you teleported to a third world country where trash are simply threw in the streets to rot for weeks if not months before the public services finally do something.