That's a shallow, post-WWII vision of history. The US used to build great cities, then it bulldozed large parts of them to build the present highway-oriented dystopia. If one radical change was possible then, so is another, now.

The car-centric, suburb-centric culture cannot be sustained economically or ecologically, and will therefore come to an end. How do we want that to happen - intentionally and progressively, or catastrophically?