I suppose it's hard for me to conceptualise because here in the UK, anywhere with restricted parking also has public transport.

Here, generally restricted parking exists within 10-15 minutes walk of a train station (to stop people blocking up residential streets when they commute in to town).

So if there's restricted parking, you can get by with one car (or no cars), for the most part.

My experience has been more and more highly dense real estate is built with exactly the number of parking spaces as needed and no more. Developers extract the most revenue that way - to the detriment of people who actually wind up living there. That was my experience in LV anyway. It looked to be the case in SV as well.

Is on-street parking generally restricted in suburbs in the US or something?

It's confusing me that you refer to 'parking spaces', that's what I mean by restricted parking - generally anywhere outside of public transport range in the UK is free-for-all - you park at the side of the road. There are no 'spaces', aside from the physical restriction of the length of the road.

It can be, especially in the winter in areas that are prone to snow. Also a lot of "suburbs" don't consist of developments but are just houses along roads. In many cases, those roads don't have anywhere for cars to park.

The roads that you can parallel park at in the Southwest are the vast exception in my experience. If you did that just about anywhere in my town you’d be towed, as a nicer option for the authorities to choose.

That's a shame!

We do have problems with inner city parking reducing roads to single lane in London. But in more rural areas, you can just leave your car anywhere. The concern is thef, vandalism, collision, not enforcement action.

Which is nullified for the most part with a crappy old car. :P