I lived in MI, TX, CO, CA, AL, and WI, and found a car to be moderately useful in TX and very useful in AL. I did get to work and do errands without one for over a year in AL, but the combination of dangerous roads, dangerous weather, and hostile drivers made it unpleasant and scary. Conceivably, I could have lived closer to work...but my entry level professional income wasn't high enough, and I wasn't in with the right crowd to get in that neighborhood.
At any rate, I gained a better understanding of why lower income folks who really didn't have any money and were geographically cut off from important resources like food and health care might find a car necessary in that region. It was really sad to see how some people had rigged their cars just to keep them on the road, but without other transportation options or affordable housing near anything useful, I couldn't blame them.