Singapore was literally rebuilt for cars very much like America. It's not because cars are better, and even so drivers are miserable here they rank low on waze's rankings of happy drivers, with Netherlands much further up the pack. All new developments (HDB as well) are even more car centric. If you can drive, you are afforded privilege in some respects, and so that's why people do it.

Also, "live away from the city center and have kids" ignores that still 89% of people in singapore don't own cars, and no, 89% of people in sg do not "live near the city center" or "don't have kids."

You kinda prove my point. 11% own cars because thats the government cap (no more cars allowed), but even middle class people are willing to spend hundreds of thousands for the benefits of driving.

And to say Singapore was built for cars is kinda funny. It has one of the best public transit systems in the world.

I spent a month in Singapore in 2015, staying at an apartment in Haugong, 10km from my office.

Public transport took an hour to get to the office. A taxi was 20 minutes. I'd agree public transport isn't great by a long way. Riding a bike if I lived there permanently might have been better, even with the 32 degree heat.

When you make it incredibly expensive to own a car, few people own cars. Who would have guessed?

I wonder what car ownership would look like if there was no fee and taxes were much lower?

Maybe wonder how it would look like if car owners actually paid for the cost (environmental, killing pedestrians and cyclists, huge areas of valuable land dedicated to parking, cost of road maintenance). Cars are the most subsidized mean of transportation, no wonder there are so many of them.

You missed the point entirely.

It's incredibly expensive to owns cars and people still pay.

That tells you how valuable they find owning a car.