I felt the same way on a road trip that took me through Dallas and Houston several years ago. Even though I knew they were sprawly and car oriented, I was a bit surprised about the vibe as the cities are old enough to in theory have nice old traditional down-towns. There were some neat spots, but what's seared in my memory are multi-level parking garages and ground-level retail few and far between.
Reading up on it after, apparently the cities built under/overground tunnels between many of the buildings to keep people out of the heat, especially at the height of summer. This sucked life out of the streets.
> Say what you will about space, I don't know how anyone could live in a place as culturally dead as Dallas.
Culturally dead is the wrong word, I think. You don't have millions of people in one place and no culture. The streets lacked vibrancy from what I could gather from two days in each city, making it hard to find it (which is a major problem).
I live in the central area of a major city (Toronto) and I love the fact that I don't own a car and can rent one when I need it. I have shopping/groceries/bars/work/parks/museums all within a 10-15 minute walk from home so I get where you're coming from. When I visited Edmonton, Alberta about a decade ago, my first impressions were very similar until my cousins took me out to all the things they do and I had a good time (still wouldn't want to live there).