Intercity buses would be nice, and perhaps a car pool among few friends could work. Renting a car however remains very impractical for any longer trip.
Still, I'm not sure what is so bad about owning a car in a small or medium-sized city like mine. Average age of a car in my country is almost 14 years, and rising. Very few people are buying new cars, and keeping the old ones around, using infrastructure already built isn't so bad. The population is barely growing and will soon fall, further reducing need for new car-centric infrastructure. I drive less than 8k kilometers a year.
It’s mind-boggling how quickly the “rent or buy” switches toward buying, especially if you’re willing to compare “rent car” with “buy a cheap used car.”
I just rented a car for a holiday. It was much more expensive then the cost of keeping my own car on the road, and took a whole lot of time to book including avoiding a number of ways any minor damage would cost thousands more.
This is absolutely no reason to justify owning a car.
People can still rent a car, people can still do car pools, people can still can have intercity buses.