There are local shops and things like your high streets in different areas. There are grocery stores everywhere though, there's one about 2 minutes away from me and probably 20-30 grocery stores if not more within 10 miles (16km) of where I live. Most people visit larger shopping malls and whatnot, the only huge street full of local shops near me is on a college campus. It seems most businesses here are chains/franchises. Again it depends on where you live in the US though, I live in a large city that's surrounded by more cities (I'm in the center of the New York City/Philadelphia/Baltimore/Washington D.C. megalopolis). If I were to go back to my hometown in Michigan, there would be a lot more local shops.
For house maintenance we pay out of pocket. There's house insurance for anything unexpected that may happen, like flooding, earthquake damage, hurricane damage, burglary, accidents that result in losses, things like that. We have to pay monthly for insurance, including health/dental/vision insurance. Trash is done by separate companies, not by government, so we pay a trash collection company to take the trash every week. Waste management is the company I use (https://www.wm.com) but we can pick from quite a few different companies.
This is the car I have, which I consider to be a 'small' SUV:
https://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/toyota/rav4/2011/oem/2011_toyota_rav4_4dr-suv_base_fq_oem_1_500.jpg
I would consider something like this to be large:
https://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/2010-chevrolet-tahoe-hybrid.jpg
