Indeed, the American corporate sector turned the US into suburban hellhole because people bought into what they were sold. And media propaganda kept the disaster going. If people voted with their wallets to have walkable cities, the entire economy would reorient towards providing it instead. Just like how the new '5 minute city' or 'walkable city' public discourse that recently come to be in the US represents.

And elsewhere in the world people dont live in 'cities'. They live in neighborhoods. They have a neighborhood they live in, where most of their activities happen, and probably a neighborhood where they work, which occupies a much lesser place in their daily activities. Most of their lives pass among those two neighborhoods. They shop in their own neighborhood or at most someplace on the way between their workplace and home. Maybe at some place near their office if they prefer. They dont go out of their way to buy groceries or have a dentist, massagist in a different neighborhood. (unless they had them before moving). So their lives stay optimized.

The Americans poison their lives with fads like you said. They have to drink that brand of coffee that they must get from somewhere else in a different neighborhood, they have to walk in a certain park in that other neighborhood, they have to go to that specific gym in that popular zone. All of that cause them to lose time and energy. So they complicate their lives themselves. If they preferred walkable cities and 5-minute neighborhoods and voted with their wallets instead, they could rapidly change the US.