These threads tend to devolve into, "Americans are so unsophisticated everyone else in the world is banning cars and turning downtown into walkable utopia" but what they really mean by rest of the world is a few crowded European cities. If you look at all the new rich mega cities built in the Middle East and East Asia cars continue to exist alongside good public transit as aspirational status icons and the preferred means of transit for people who can afford them. Cars are never going away.

Extremes rarely work out well. The people paying for the luxury are funding improvements for everyone.

If I live in a NYC like this how do I visit my friends in Philadelphia? What if they live in Towson MD? Now what if they live in the suburbs? How would I visit anybody in the country side anywhere? What if I want to buy in bulk at Costco? What if I just want to buy anything I can't carry on the subway?

I have spent over a decade without owning a car in multiple cities. It's definitely possible but I've been fortunate enough to have friends and family with personal vehicles I can use.

we still need roads for ambulances and deliveries and bikes and shared cars / busses, and there obviously would be enormous costs to peoples time for what already is one of the biggest cities in the world.

Interesting but feels Un-American as a concept.

Except horses, mules, donkeys and huskies. These can stay.

Go one step further and ban mechanized transport all together. Streets will have very little congestion. We can just go back to footpaths.