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America’s love affair with cars is tied to independence.
A car means you can travel anywhere in the contiguous 48 states — vacation, visit friends and family. It also means you can look for work and get a job in a wider area than relying on just living near work. This means better pay, and access to cheaper housing. A vehicle also helps to haul goods meaning it’s easier to become an independent contractor.
Except in most other countries they have access to the same amount of independence, but don't need a car to do the same thing.
A train only takes you to so many train stops. A car can take you anywhere the roads can take you, and more of you drive around off road.
This why public transit systems generally include buses. I will concede no-one uses buses for off-roading, but I would guess 90% of Americans do not drive their car off-road more than once or twice a year total, so I fail to see why that would be particularly relevant for a mass-market appeal.
But for that 1% change they do possibly think about taking their car off road they can. Therefore they need a 70000 4000 pound pickup and not a sedan.
But then it has to be asked - are things so spread out because of the car? Could things have been more convenient and close by if we didn't rely so heavily on the car? Would shopping centers like target and Walmart choose to be 5 miles outside of town if people didn't have cars, or would they opt to be closer to where the people are, walkable and convenient.
That's my point, that cars have made us more independent maybe, but at the sacrifice of our own convenience and community.
It is a lot of things. Despite the majority of people living in cities the US has a very strong independence in rural settings identity that includes traveling to remote areas on our own terms. This was fueled by auto makers and supported by our remote national parks, and a huge section if the southwestern US that is mostly open roads for miles and miles.
Unfortunately this aspect, which is a fairly positive thing in rural areas, needs into the cities where they were either built or changed over time to try and replicate the open spaces in dense areas. That is primarily possible because of all the open land, and being a new country that had killed or kicked out the previous inhabitants, the cities did not have centuries of existing as dense urban centers. Instead we got suburbs as a bastardized combination of cities and rural areas.
Walmart likes to live on the edges of cities around here for land costs and tax purposes, and since they cater to rural folks who already have to drive to get there, they end up with huge parking lots and massive amounts of wasted space. They are basically the business version of the suburbs.
The only solution would be to actively plan dense cities, but it runs counter to what we are taught to want, and the intentional destruction of public transportation we used to have along with ideas that public transportation must be self funding while roads get paid by taxes means change has some massive obstacles to overcome.
"Most other countries"
Can you name even five?
Not OP but here you go:
The only reason it feels like independence is because people are trapped living on suburbs without any public transit. I have never lived on the suburbs, only in city centers with multiple alternatives to transportation (started to ride the bus alone at 10yo), but the couple of times visiting family on the suburbs I felt trapped waiting for someone who drive me anywhere.
Yep having a reliable car is one of the biggest freedoms there is. Too bad their environmental footprint is high when so many are on the roads.