how is it negligible that you can't go to work without a car?

if said car breaks down you have to pay (and spend time) to repair it. many people live paycheck to paycheck, no savings. payday loans and credit card loans are a problem in the US and it's not exactly a coincidence.

of course people in said European cities who can't afford a car also usually don't frequent Starbucks and don't buy avocado (unless maybe if it's on sale), that doesn't mean transportation as a factor is negligible.

> The world economic situation ...

is a completely structural problem. the world needs to spend less of its economic surplus on unsustainable stuff, and this includes everything with externalities (from things like watering the desert in California on an industrial scale to housing/heating/cooling/moving people and freight around using costly ways) and allocating more to building infrastructure for energy generation (and transmission and storage), healthcare and education.

of course strictly speak we don't need to. feudalism was fine, most people got used to it.