Car-centrism in urban design wasn't an accident. It was intentional to create indebted workers who now needed to borrow money to buy cars and houses. 30 year mortgage are a relatively new phenomenon.
Likewise, we have people working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. This again is intentional to extract even more surplus labor value from people. This comes at the cost of people spending time outside of work, including with their families.
Destruction of community is a side effect of this and that too is intentional.
A much more minor point that is worth mentioning is that there are a lot of people who have children who don't actually like children. Or they want adult children without going through all the steps to get there. These are people who will intentionally work late to avoid chaos at home or have really time-consuming hobbies (eg distance running) that take them out of the home for significant periods of time.
Some of this I can attribute to the insecurity of not being able to provide for material needs. And that's the part capitalism plays.
I don't think capitalism is the problem here, it's government policies. Zoning codes which only permit low density development and require parking spaces encourage car centrism, and all the problems you mentioned. If these codes were changed to allow for more density and no parking minimums, the free market would be free to determine the optimum density and required parking for an area.
I don't really buy it. It's not like capitalism is something new in the US. Blaming the change on something that's always been there is not really a good argument.
Besides car-centrism isn't inherently needed either in a capitalistic society. You can live your whole life in a lot of capitalist countries without a car
Feudalism existed for centuries until it fell to capitalism.
Prior to WW2 there was a strong labor movement in the US. There was a reason the US was paranoid about communists. Abraham Lincoln was basically a Marxist in this sense [1][2]. That's how far right things have shifted, particularly since Ronald Reagan.
The Red Scare dstroyed any sense of class consciousness people had and neoliberalism ran wild. This doesn't happen overnight.
Here is the full speech for reference, but Abraham Lincoln was far from a Marxist given that he describes essentially the American dream of starting from nothing to build your own enterprise.
"Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all."
He's talking about workers owning the means of production. That's straight socialism. Small businesses are socialist. Family farms are socialist. It's large companies that become capitalist as the workers become further and further removed from the means of production.
Also, Lincoln is talking about the master-apprentice relationship common in trades. We've seen such arrangements erode in our society. Now we expect people to take out student loans and fund their own education and then spend years paying off that debt.
Lincoln's approach is, at a minimum, collectivist.
Car-centrism in urban design wasn't an accident. It was intentional to create indebted workers who now needed to borrow money to buy cars and houses. 30 year mortgage are a relatively new phenomenon.
Likewise, we have people working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. This again is intentional to extract even more surplus labor value from people. This comes at the cost of people spending time outside of work, including with their families.
Destruction of community is a side effect of this and that too is intentional.
A much more minor point that is worth mentioning is that there are a lot of people who have children who don't actually like children. Or they want adult children without going through all the steps to get there. These are people who will intentionally work late to avoid chaos at home or have really time-consuming hobbies (eg distance running) that take them out of the home for significant periods of time.
Some of this I can attribute to the insecurity of not being able to provide for material needs. And that's the part capitalism plays.