^This is true, there's definitely a trend developing, especially in Canada. The population of downtown Toronto, for example, has skyrocketed in the last decade. Even in suburbs like Vaughan, Markham, and Mississauga, new high density cores are being developed around mass transit. Highway 7 where I live is being completely rebuilt to have a bus transitway, bike lanes, and vastly improved sidewalks and streetscaping, all of which will support the new city centres being built along its length. This is all impacting car ownership.
Planners, engineers and politicians are realizing that building cities around cars is inefficient, expensive, and ineffective. It results in sprawling cities that become so big that it takes hours to cross them, especially when there are no alternatives to driving. Plus they've realized that people respond to their built environment - the easier you make it to drive, the more people will drive and you just end up with more congestion. This is why there's been a shift back towards more transit and pedestrian focused communities. Basically North America is following the way the rest of the world has always built cities.
That said, the vast majority of our suburbs are still being built around cars with only lip service paid to pedestrians. Try walking around a community that was truly built for pedestrians, like the Annex in Toronto or Unionville in Markham. Then try doing the same in a newer suburb. The difference is like night and day.
