> cars are the single biggest reason why living in the city can be unpleasant
I'm pretty sure rent / house prices are the #1 negative people cite about cities. A relatively new phenomenon. In cities where prices have not risen as much, like Detroit, I doubt people say cars are unpleasant.
Ironically cars are probably depressing prices in the city significantly. For most normal people, a car lets them not overpay for land, by letting them live somewhere far away.
The pandemic changed that calculus. Normals don't work from home though. Normals were just sustained by PPP, until that ran out and they get (or already are) fired.
> infrastructure
The people living in cities with developing infrastructure change faster than the infrastructure gets built.
Let's say we're talking about a place where land values are rising despite no infrastructure changes. There, the people who want to leave rent or sell to the people who want to come, who already find the lack of infrastructure agreeable.
The people who are left over can't afford the higher rents.
So then, what you discover is situations like the Sommerville Green Line Extension. Many residents opposed it. "Gentrification" is a word used to describe the antagonist, for these people.
Why opposition to infrastructure? It raises rents.
It's a little reductionist, to make everything about dollar and cents. We're paying for the environmental and psychic impact of having cars everywhere with too few dollars.
But good luck advocating for infrastructure changes on a timeline faster than the makeup of the residents of the town.