I mostly agree. The majority of neighborhoods in the US are designed to support enormous vehicles driving as fast as they can and are therefore an unnecessarily

I mostly agree. The majority of neighborhoods in the US are designed to support enormous vehicles driving as fast as they can and are therefore an unnecessarily hostile environment for everyone else. I would not choose to risk my children walking on their own just to make a point or "be the change" in a place like that. However you can choose where to live. there are still plenty of walkable neighborhoods in cities, suburbs, small towns, etc. The issue is that you will have to find them and then you will have to pay more for the privilege of living there. With respect to finding them, we used national commuting mode share and various websites to pick a handful of regions that had a reputation for walkability, spent a bit of time on Google Maps, called the schools to inquire about their mode share (e.g. percent of children who walk/bike minus the percent driven by parents), chatted with the folks who run the state's Safe Routes to School program, and rented an apartment while we spent a couple months biking around the candidate neighborhoods/towns, especially during rush hour. With respect to cost we were priced out of the really walkable areas but were able to find something where many kids walk or bike to school on their own in our price range. Based on price premium for walkable areas it seems that a lot of home buyers prioritize the same things we do but not a lot of new neighborhoods are built to prioritize walking. It felt like there were a lot of people competing for a relatively fixed pool of (typically old) neighborhoods.