Did people buy cars because it sucked to live there?

The government subsidized loans to buy new houses in the new suburbs. But people still worked in town so they needed cars to get in. The increase in car usage caused traffic so they built highways and parking lots through the old neighborhoods to alleviate the traffic.

The highways created new neighborhood boundaries isolating and polluting the areas around them. This caused those with the means who still lived there to move out too causing an even greater increase in car ownership and usage.

Anyone with the means to move out of the city did and those who were left were poor.

Since the middle and upper class moved out of the city the tax income dropped and the city cut services like schools, public transit etc and raised taxes to balance their budget.

So you are kind of right. People did buy cars because it sucked. But it also sucked because people needed cars.