Have you considered that within city, parking is a huge problem? Maybe in american suburb the parking space is big enough to fit housing for 100 families, but in the city they don't have such luxury.

Now just like what you said about the public transport, for driving it's get in the car, facing 20 min of traffic jam, waiting for traffic light, waiting for traffic light, waiting for another traffic light, reach your destination, find a parking, saw a spot, too bad because big dumb pickup truck double park because the parking spot is too small to fit that ego-sized vehicle, looking for another parking spot, finally found one but have to make 5 min walk to the shop. Now do the return trip.