zlacker

I'm from Australia, which is close to the size of the continental US but with less than 10% of its population. I know how big and how sparsely populated the US is, and don't really see your point.

Yeah, there are big areas of country Australia and the US where you need a car to get to anything. This is a good reason to have access to a car for some of the population. It's not a reason for the towns themselves to be built with carparks everywhere, no footpaths, massive outlets distributed far apart, bad public transport that doubles as crisis housing for the local homeless population, no pedestrian safety and comfort features like roadside trees, lawns instead of gardens, and everything else that makes up sterile urban sprawl.