Most big cities have a majority of the population without cars at this point. These cities naturally favor more legislation against cars and this is causing city administrators to over time introduce more restrictions for cars. E.g. many Dutch cities got a head start on this to make more room for bicyclists in the nineteen seventies already. Simple measures include raising prices for parking and parking permits, introducing park and ride areas where people can park and hop on a bus to the downtown area, making lots of streets one way only and segmenting off different parts of the city such that you can only drive there via the ring road, making large parts of the down town area car free, etc. Cars are for getting in and out of the city not for driving from A to B inside a city.
I live in Berlin which is comparatively car friendly because of the German car manufacturing lobby. You can drive to the downtown area and expect to find street parking. This is very un-european at this point. Forget about doing that in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Madrid, etc. Not a thing there anymore. Even a few decades ago that would have been a bad idea. You'd be stuck in traffic for ages and your only option for parking will be a full (probably) parking garages charging massive fees. These days it's flat out not allowed or at least enormously expensive.
Even so, owning a car does not make much sense in Berlin and most tech people with comparatively decent incomes I know here in the massive startup scene don't own cars and many of the few that do rarely use them.
> You can drive to the downtown area and expect to find street parking
I don't think I've ever seen a French city where most streets, including those downtown, don't have street parking. Most of the time it's not free, but it's always there.
I've driven around quite a bit in the south of France. My experience is quite different. Even in smaller towns. E.g Avignon, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse don't have a lot of street parking in the downtown areas. Berlin is different in the sense that you can drive right up to the Alexander Platz and actually have a decent chance of actually parking your car near by. Also not for free obviously. That would be the same as driving to e.g. the Arc de Triomf in Paris or Picadilly circus in London and finding a place to park. It's been a while since I've been too either place but I don't think this is a thing.
I live in Berlin which is comparatively car friendly because of the German car manufacturing lobby. You can drive to the downtown area and expect to find street parking. This is very un-european at this point. Forget about doing that in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Madrid, etc. Not a thing there anymore. Even a few decades ago that would have been a bad idea. You'd be stuck in traffic for ages and your only option for parking will be a full (probably) parking garages charging massive fees. These days it's flat out not allowed or at least enormously expensive.
Even so, owning a car does not make much sense in Berlin and most tech people with comparatively decent incomes I know here in the massive startup scene don't own cars and many of the few that do rarely use them.