I think you've actually got this backwards. People in NYC would prefer to own a car, just like everybody else in America. The difference is that in NYC it's a lot more expensive and difficult (traffic, parking, etc). That, coupled with the presence of a strong transit system, results in low rates of car ownership.
In Kansas City, to take your example, there actually is decent bus transit [0]. But owning a car is also dirt-cheap and far more convenient than owning one in NYC. So people own cars. I live and work directly on a train line in St. Louis, but I still own a car, because, why not? Cost of ownership is very low -- parking is included at my apartment (and free and easy basically everywhere else) -- and it gives me more options. But I definitely don't need it.
In summary: 1) You absolutely can get around by transit in many (most?) largish Midwestern cities; 2) People own cars anyway because it's cheap and convenient; 3) People choose transit not when it's merely convenient, but when it's more convenient than car ownership.
[0] http://ridekc.org/assets/uploads/documents/SystemMap.pdf
I'm not trying to argue over the merits of living in a city vs a suburb. The parent stated that cars cost the same in KC and SF and I'm providing a realistic alternative -- they do not because of parking and ancillary costs. At this point it is obvious we need to move out of the city and it is down to an optimization problem of how much space we want vs how many hours a week i can see my child (e.g., I can live in NJ, but i wont be back home in time to see kids 4+ days out of the week.) I imagine the calculus is the same in SF, but I cannot say firsthand.
What a weird remark. Have you considered that there might be people who don't fetishize cars like you do?
I very specifically hate driving. I specifically choose which cities I live in so I can avoid driving.
I've tried transport in most cities outside of NYC. It's really not on the level of NYC. Yes, there is a bus system but it's hardly comparable to a subway system where I can get anywhere in the city throughout the night with minimal waits.
I feel like you might have this loaded as a sort of generic thing you say to people, but it doesn't apply here. I'm talking about the tradeoffs people make in general. Calling me a car fetishist is a non sequitur.
What I'm actually saying, though, is far more benign, which is that just as many people would own a car in NYC as in Kansas City if it were equally convenient and inexpensive [0]. People (in general) don't choose public transit merely because it's convenient. They choose transit when it's more convenient than car ownership.
The flip side of this is that high car ownership rates aren't necessarily evidence of nonexistent or inadequate transit. Where car ownership is cheap and convenient, people almost universally choose to own a car (even if other options exist).
[0] Well, clearly not just as many. I don't like driving, either, and New York is attractive to me, too, because it enables that preference. But, still, consider that nearly half of all New Yorkers do own a car, despite how wildly inconvenient that is. Consider also that even in cities like Detroit and St. Louis something like 25% of people are carless, so there's some baseline level of poverty (even in very inexpensive cities) that prevents ownership. All of which is to say that a 50% ownership rate in NYC actually strikes me as pretty high (and as evidence, again, that people really will put up with a lot to keep driving).
Almost every city in America besides NYC is built under the assumption of car ownership and, for that reason, the vast majority of people have cars. NYC is the only city in the US where the majority of people go without one, because the infrastructure is in place to support it.