As for car, the downpayment of your car will be easily swallowed up by what Swedes will be paying for all expenses from groceries to computers. American big city have definitely high crime rate, Swedes are catching up fast. They have serious youth violence problems as US's. Just they are not reported often here. The only advantange of such country is that it is more or less made up of one enthnic group with common culture and language which has more than a millenium of history. Such conditions acts as a strong glue to keep a country from socially disintegrating fast. It is nothing to do with their economic priorities.
And thanks but no thanks...I'll take the comfort of my SUV, alone with no one but Rush to listen to over the grim, crowded, spray painted, however pretty efficient rails in any European city...Life here is pretty good-light years beyond what Europe has to offer. IMO.
Just the other day one of my Swedish colleagues was lamenting the fact that the murder rate in Stockholm is no different than the US (worse than current US statistics actually, or so I was told). The overall stats for the country are lower, but approaching US levels pretty quickly. He says the level of youth violence is barely under control there, due in no small part to the pervasively pessimistic outlook on life in the younger generations.