An efficient car sharing infrastructure can easily alleviate the need for the odd drive.
Living in rural area - you need a vehicle and a gun. That's true for people in Europe as well as in US.
The problem with midwest, is that sprawling poorly connected suburbia was a form of social engineering. Most old world cities have grown organically, not with someone's "grand design" in mind. Thus - in US, outside of NYC, you don't have an option to not own a car.
An efficient car sharing infrastructure can easily alleviate the need for the odd drive.
Living in rural area - you need a vehicle and a gun. That's true for people in Europe as well as in US.
The problem with midwest, is that sprawling poorly connected suburbia was a form of social engineering. Most old world cities have grown organically, not with someone's "grand design" in mind. Thus - in US, outside of NYC, you don't have an option to not own a car.