In the US car taxes are based on value. Where I live once a car is 10 years old the tax is $50/year. Buy a cheap car for $5000, pay $1000/year to insure it, and $50/year for a license and it is fully legal. You still have to pay for fuel, but that is fairly cheap. You also have maintenance expenses, but generally the poor have a network of mechanics to do the labor for free (in exchange for your labor for something else). Even if you buy a different car every year, you will be hard pressed to find an apartment for $6000/year.

Downtown in US cities parking is prohibitive, but that is only a small part of the city. Most of the city you can park for free. You want to move the car every day just so it doesn't look abandoned, but otherwise this is a cheap way to live and you get transportation as a bonus.

In Sweden large cities even in the suburbs parking can be quite expensive. But I guess it is because "the big city suburbs" in Sweden are still mostly 4-6 story tall apartments.

At my current place (apartment in a suburb about 10km from the city center) our parking would cost ~180 USD per month. From a tech worker perspective it is not like unaffordable, but definetily a luxury for most of the population. The median after-tax income in Sweden is like 3k USD.

That tax I mentioned before also makes very old beat-up cars not worth keeping (which is the intent of the tax to be fair).

One of the main upsides of living in a detached house in Sweden is not having to pay for parking. But even so the increase heating bills in winter can easily cost more than a car installment depending on your HVAC and insulation.