I can comprehend this better than the parking wasteland in the city. Here the land was cheap.
Where even the train stations are literally surrounded by highways and parking lots. The amount of valuable easily reachable space wasted for parking infrastructure blows my mind.
That's the misunderstanding right there...that space isnt THAT valuable. The US is far more spread out that even the least populated areas of the EU. We take up all that space for parking lots because we have it to spare.
This is also why public transport doesnt make economic or environmental sense for most of the US, we dont have a dense enough population for it replace cars.
Well then you don't understand how humans work. No offense.
But I ain't going to take the train if I have to walk five miles across a barren wasteland of concrete across multiple highways just to get to the train station.
That land IS extremely valuable that's why the properties in the rare areas where mixed zoning without parking lot requirements have such a high value.
The us doesn't build like this because it's desired, it's build this way because it is required by law. And it makes the areas unliveable for humans.
Oh and by the way, it ruins the neighborhood financially too.
Having to build wide and long streets just to accommodate for the bonkers amount of parking space comes with massive infrastructure cost.