Not all shopping has to be done with a SUV in a large parking lot. Retail does not require parking if there is a large population within walking/easy public transit access.
I'll give my neighborhood as an example. I live in a small city, outside of the most urban part, where most buildings are houses on 1/10 of acre lots. Population density is about 10,000 per square mile. Pretty much everyone has a car, however most local businesses don't have any off street parking. The side streets tend to have free parking (there's always enough), and the main streets tend to have metered parking. Plenty of people come here from the suburbs to shop, because there are unique, local stores you're not going to find at a mall, and there's plenty of good places to eat and drink.
The businesses don't have to provide nearly as much parking, because they have several thousand potential customers within a short walk.
The setup you're describing is, if at all urban, only barely so. Really on an area average you've just described a suburbs which happened to develop with a dense enough core that there is little or no 'free parking' for the businesses.
It would be like me picking out the area called 'west Seattle' (one of the near by suburbs of Seattle) when I should really be talking about Seattle as the urban environment.
I'll give my neighborhood as an example. I live in a small city, outside of the most urban part, where most buildings are houses on 1/10 of acre lots. Population density is about 10,000 per square mile. Pretty much everyone has a car, however most local businesses don't have any off street parking. The side streets tend to have free parking (there's always enough), and the main streets tend to have metered parking. Plenty of people come here from the suburbs to shop, because there are unique, local stores you're not going to find at a mall, and there's plenty of good places to eat and drink.
The businesses don't have to provide nearly as much parking, because they have several thousand potential customers within a short walk.