Parking takes up space, a whole bunch of real estate that could be used for something else.

There are not enough rare earth metals to make the batteries to replace all of the cars in the US much less the entire planet.

You can do those things in Europe?

Just not everywhere in Europe. Europe allows cities and towns to exist without being entirely built around cars.

Please read this entire message

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Most places in Europe just don't have the space/luxury to "spread out" like North American cities (which were built much, much later than those in Europe were). There is still a lor of land available for development in North America (specifically the US). Or, the places that have parking and/or large multilane roads were built fairly recently on open land. For parking lots and multilane highways in places Europeans want/need to go, they'd have to tear down what's already there

Because Induced Demand exists and so it will always be impossible to build enough transit infrastructure to solve congestion... and private cars are the most expensive, least scalable, most damaging, least equitable and socially isolating mode of transit to build more infrastructure for.

Congestion is a huge issue.

A single subway train can carry hundreds of people, nearing a thousand.

Now imagine how much road will be required to get a thousand cars to some place. How wide the roads will need to be, how many people need to be displaced to fit it. How loud it's going to be for those who remain.

Parking is an issue.

Now imagine, how much parking you'll need to house a thousand cars. It's a building that does nothing but house cars. You need to clear land, it's going to block views and take up space.

Equity is an issue.

Now think on those people too poor to afford cars. All those opportunities to get ahead will be lost to them due to their inability to get around. The deck was stacked against them already, now they have an additional disadvantage.

Environmental issues are another issue.
Think of the energy needed to repeatedly move a thousand car weights every day for hours. That isn't coming for nowhere, even green energy like solar or wind has up keep and wilderness habitat displaced. It's far better than fossil fuels, but not zero. Also think of all the manufacturing for a thousand cars, the tons of metal needed for the bodies, the tons of rare-earth elements for the batteries and electronics. That is if we do go green and electric, more likely it will be all fossil fuels for a long time.

Oh and that single train carrying a thousand people. Several of those will be going every hour for rush hour.

The USA has a reputation for creating urban hellscapes thanks to its car centric approach. You do not want that for your country.

>As an european, I WANT more parking space, I would love to drive anywhere, including downtown, without worrying where to park, I want 6 lanes on the highway each direction. I would never accept using anything else than my own car.

>Especially considering the rise of electric vehicles and the inevitability of dropping fossil fuels altogether, why is the idea of "build a city around the pedestrians, bikes and public transport" being so forced?

The whole point of a car is to enable you to quickly travel medium and large distances. That makes it rather pointless in a city where a public transit system can fulfill the same role more efficiently while all medium to short distances can also be traveled by bike.

Using up precious city space on the truly tremendous (and often redundant) amounts of infrastructure needed by cars when public transit and bike lanes can deliver the same throughput at a much tinier footprint is just wasteful and city planners are starting to take that into account.