You describe my childhood in USSR. I don't see it repeating at any meaningful scale. I do dream though, while slowly working on human carrying electric VTOL, that we'll get to the world with residential neighborhoods kind of like golf-courses - a lot of green space with minimum paved paths for short hops (and last mile various cargo) on electric "golf-carts"/etc. while electrically-VTOL-ing to any destination farther than 5-10 miles.
Parents driving kids to school and hobbies seem to be an almost uniquely American obsession. I live in an affluent not-USA country and my kids go to school and hobbies by walking/bike/bus. If I had to chauffeur them around all the time my quality of life would go way down.
Car dependency is definitely not a US specific thing, sadly.
Of course not, didn't mean to imply that. But the US seems to take it to 11.
Don't take this the wrong way but I definitely think it's "peak hn" to consider that building 1m wide cycle paths is somehow just an impossible thing to have, so much so that you see some weird scifi vision of flying cars as being easier than that.
But it's not only that. Quality of life is precisely the kids being able to just cycle to school and sports with their friends, rather than being stuck on the back of an SUV in traffic for hours every day, being driven around by their parents.
I have lived in places where the former lifestyle is available and where the latter is mandated. There is NO QUESTION which one is better. That's why I'm working to campaign very hard for this to be a reality where I live in ~10 years time :)