It's not just he car... most of these cities are not affordable to live in when you have kids. A 1 or 2 bedroom is fine for a young & single worker or a young couple. But bigger apartments have been converted into dorm style living in many cases since rents have shot through the roof.

Many cities like Boston, NY and SF are trying to add affordable housing but that seems to be either a few units for very low income people or micro-units that are just a couple hundred square feet. Unless you make a huge amount of money I think most families get pushed to the suburbs to try to find somewhere they can afford to live.

I'd like to see better designed suburbs that combine dense larger housing with public transit to connect the suburb communities with each other and the city they encircle. We need a size of home between the micro-apartment and the 2 million dollar mini mansion.

I'd love to be able to take public transit into Boston from my place in the suburbs but train stations only have a few dozen parking spots and the bus service is limited to the city areas. So I drive for now.