I live in a very walkable small town with lots of young families also biking and walking with their young children, as I am, and couldn’t disagree with you more about cars. It’s so nice to walk to the market instead of loading and unloading a car seat, to have the option of walking or taking a short bus ride to school, to walk to parks and playgrounds. I had the opposite reaction you did when I actually lived in a place that was kinda similar to what Europeans describe.