[zip1234]

Yes, the funny thing is that because cities allow so many cars in the city center, congestion, pollution, and noise are everywhere, which makes people want to move to the suburbs, which means they have to drive to get anywhere, which makes congestion, pollution, and noise everywhere in the suburbs, which makes them want to move further out...

[acdha]

It makes a lot more sense when you look at the history. American suburbs exploded in popularity after the successes of the civil rights movement started cutting into the ability of white people to live in a city without having to share public spaces with black people. Public pools were closed around the country, tons of people moved into suburbs which had barriers of various levels of subtlety where they could create a de facto segregated school system, etc.

Since that was the class of people with the most money and significant political power, city planning departments were heavily dominated by the idea that the people who mattered the most weren't actually residents for many decades, especially since it's always easier to continue a direction than radically reconsider the approach.

I saw a good example of that here in DC a couple of years ago when our pedestrian safety project was being led by an older traffic engineer who could not stop talking about cars per hour as his primary metric. It was very clear that this was a deeply engrained way of thinking, and that it had never been subject to much critical analysis. When he retired and a much younger replacement got the job, they treated neighborhood safety as their top priority — and since they actually ran simulations rather than relying on their gut, it turned out to have almost no impact on overall commute speeds because all the reckless drivers were doing was getting to the next backup slightly faster.