Feel free to keep arguing how things radically changed just for cars. But they didn't.
- parking mandates that push everything very far apart because parking takes up a lot of space
- zoning restrictions that necessitate distant travel because your home is in a different sector of the city as your place of work, the grocery store, and places of leisure
- the disassembly of public transport systems after the war
- street design that makes it simply dangerous to travel on foot or on a bicycle, and extremely slow, because cars receive priority at all junctions
etc. etc.
etc. etc.
You and others in this thread are arguing about _where I live_. Don't you find that a tad silly? I haven't even named the town, you have no ability to research it, and the historical docs are all located at the local library and history museum.
This is a great place to be a ped and driving is a requirement. Maybe this is the golden holy land of mixed-use roads, or something.
It's a bedroom community, there are approximately 1000 jobs in total most of which reside within the school district. The purpose of the town as it stands is to raise kids and retire. Commuting to work is a requirement.
Times change, requirements change, and needs change. This isn't the 1880s, but the physical layout of the town is largely the same with the same roads. There was no "planning" for the Model T [cars] as you're attempting to argue -- it was already laid out like it is for the horse, cart, and carriage.