I lived for two years in Ann-Arbor, not that many hours drive from Chicago. Almost all of US suburbs were built to be suburbs planned for everyone to drive when

I lived for two years in Ann-Arbor, not that many hours drive from Chicago. Almost all of US suburbs were built to be suburbs planned for everyone to drive whenever they wanted to get somewhere. They aren't countryside that organically grown into suburbs. It's just ridiculous how long it takes to just cross the parking lot outside a mall by foot if you get the idea to actually walk there. We had a forest behind our house, a soccer field where we also played bandy in the winters, 10 minutes walk to the horse range, a golf course that also was used for cross country skiing in the winters, 5 minutes to the commuter train that took you to the city center in 15 minutes, lakes we swam in the summers and ice-skated in the winters. Markets for food within easy walking distance and a decent mall within easy bicycle distance. I bicycled everywhere when I didn't use public transport. I didn't even bother to get a drivers licence until I was a bit over 30, and the only reason I got it then was because I was planning some long holidays in the US. You don't need to center you society around cars and driving to have a very high and pleasant standard of living.