Yeah, that totally makes sense. I live in the dense downtown of a sprawling urban area and own a car, but it's simply only used for going out on nights and weekends. For most everyday trips I walk or take transit.
OP's point is not that living in a city means you get to or have to give up your car. It's that in many American suburbs, any other mode of getting around for everyday trips - including walking - is simply untenable. Living in a walkable neighborhood with access to good transit gives you the best thing - the option of either public or private transportation. Most of these places, in the US, aren't in the suburbs.
You lost the plot in your defense. If skills are equal, and the Mexican can ask for less salary _and enjoy the same quality of life and purchasing power_ (due to the cost of living in their native country) as a 200k/year American dev it isn’t a skills market. It is very much a cost savings market.
And I am sorry but don’t delude yourself, that dev in Mexico or Colombia is just as talented as state-side devs. Couple their talent with the reality that you don’t even need to be a savant to build a SaaS app in JS and you will see that the privilege enjoyed by software engineers in the USA is on life support.
Have you tried lugging in a whole truckload of items on the train? A train/public transit works for work commute, but not for when need to get stuff done. Even in the densest city, I had a car for 10 years. Paid for parking and had a monthly active transit pass. Different things for different purposes. Not to mention, that I walked everywhere I can.
When you can hire someone on the cheap, it becomes a skills market. You get what you pay for.