I lived in the suburbs of a very large European city. I still drove to work every day. Sure I could walk to the bus stop and wait or walk KMs to the train station and wait. But my car was the most direct and easy way to get to the office.

I never had a big city job. Mostly office buildings in office parks. So I guess me and my co-workers' lifestyles were very similar to Americans.

This is the thing about tourists who come back from Europe raving about "walkability" well of course, you were staying in the heart of a major city probably, of course there is a lot of stuff you can walk to, and there's good public transit. Get a few miles away and you'll find that many more people have cars and drive.

Living in The Netherlands, and unless you live very far out in the country, everything is easily walkable or bike-able. The closest supermarkets are generally a 5-10 minutes walk, a train or bus station is almost always close by, etc.

I myself do not own a car, and besides some very rare moments (like bringing large trash to the junkyard or something, in which case I can ask friends to quickly borrow their car), I do not have any hindrance from it.

I just moved away from the (close) suburbs of Paris and I biked a few miles to work. But yeah, if you live in distant suburbs, it's much harder.