I went back to the Cleveland suburbs for a grandparent's funeral several years back and I could definitely see how in the 1950s the structure of the suburb would've been great for the large Catholic families that lived there.
It was centred around the VFW, several parks, and a school. Children could play in the streets. Parents could socialize at the VFW and walk home. Each corner had a shopping complex with a grocery, gas station, barber etc. It was never more than 1/2 mile to all your commercial needs -- and a safe sidewalk walk if you sent kids to go get milk or eggs. If you were working downtown there was public transit to take you from the suburb to the city center and back again. I could see how this would be a very nice set up for where my parents grew up.
Today this doesn't exist. The corner shopping complexes are entirely vacant. Grocery is now only available at bigger box-stores requiring an hour of commuting in traffic on roads that don't have sidewalks. The school closed. The VFW is no longer culturally relevant.
Regardless of whether a streetcar serves the neighborhood, it is characterized by a town center (or "main street"). Retail, commerce, schools, and 3rd-places are nucleated near the main street. Distances are short, like you describe. It is in many ways an urban center and functions like a city. They're often just outside bigger cities and have multiple transportation options to get to the bigger city. These were the first suburbs but these days they're very much considered a part of the city at least symbolically or by name.
In the early naughts the "New Urbanist" movement among urban planners and architects sought to transplant this form of urbanism back to American suburbs. It was marginally successful but seemed to lose steam. The most relevant thing that remains from that effort was what is now called "complete streets" initiatives and measurements like "walkability score".
Many of the old streetcar suburbs still exist, and so do many new urbanist efforts. You can find these places if you look for them. I live in South Philly, but there are places outside Philly that are still streetcar suburbs. Walkability scores are almost as high as the big city, you can get to work in the city with a reasonably fast commuter train (septa for PA, patco for NJ). There's also office parks that are relatively short distances from these burbs-- Tech folks are vastly more likely to work in those than in the big city (which, sadly, is dominated by lawyers, hospitals, class-A corporate, retail).
Actually I wonder if a rise in restaurants has crowded out other forms of retail.
And then in new developments, it may be that housing is more profitable than small retail shops.
I admit that there are 3 supermarkets within walking distance of my house in a pedestrian friendly neighborhood. I can reach them on foot or bike in a few minutes. But they are expensive and have limited selection so we drive a few miles to a huge discount supermarket at the edge of town, every 2 or 3 weeks, and only get perishables at the nearby stores.
The walk to your mailbox is shorter than the walk from your parking spot into your store (and back).
It will be interesting to see what shopping patterns stay in place post-pandemic. On the one hand, even I who already shopped a lot online, have switched even more to Amazon rather than taking a run to the store for something I don't actually need right now. On the other hand, I was picking something up at an Apple Store a few days ago (for reasons) and it was a little bit surprising to me that the shopping mall was actually pretty busy.
The suburb was built within a decade of the end of WWII and during the Korean war. So it was a safe bet that most households had a member who was a Veteran or related to a Veteran who could wave them in.
As time progressed, less and less households in the neighborhood would probably qualify. So its no longer a community centerpiece.