Outside of a very small number of major metro areas, cities in America are not livable without a car.
And I say that as someone who really, really despises how required car ownership is, and who has spent a lot of time trying to find alternatives.
Even in reasonably large metro areas where there is a decent bus system, and a passable metro (Atlanta, in this case) a nice E-bike is still nowhere near enough to replace my car.
I've managed to replace the car for my daily commute with a ~40 minute Marta ride, and an additional 20 minutes on the bike (Would be an additional 40+ if I used the buses), but the metro doesn't come within 20 miles of either of my parents houses, nor does it get me to my brother who lives in Athens, GA. Nor does it get me anywhere close to my grandparents. I wouldn't have been able to visit my now wife while dating without a car.
I'm assuming you're not American, but if you haven't visited for a while, I suspect you're just wrong about any sense of scale you might have. Atlanta alone has a metro area of 8400 square miles. Houston is 10,000 square miles.
My wife's family has this problem. They're from Taiwan. When I first visited they warned me about a long car ride to see some family in the country. Long meant 40 minutes.
40 minutes barely gets you across Atlanta. 2 hours gets you to Athens if traffic is decent. 2 hours 30 minutes the a different direction will get you to my family in north GA (and Atlanta is already well in the north half of GA). I can drive south at 80 mph for 4 freaking hours and still be in GA.