Shit started to go wrong as far back as the 50s most places, perhaps earlier in the US. Light rail, tram networks were ripped up all over the world in favour of private motor vehicles and US style real estate development with their car centric dead burbs and no local life.

Once you go all in on car centric planning it is difficult to go back. Housing development is a long way from quality entertainment, shopping, food, culture, work so people need to travel long distances but everything is so distributed and low density that its hostile to public transport networks.

Americans are correct. You can't simply swap to bikes and public transport on top of 70+ years of insane urban planning. Some older inner cities and very small towns can be fixed. The rest is a problem.