Why are cars getting bigger?

Why are cars getting increasingly bigger? What used to be small cars for example Nissan Micra, Ford Fiesta even the MINI are huge compared to their previous versions. In a congested part of the world like Western Europe, You see so many large cars usually only with 1 person in them (the driver) why are governments and car manufacturers alike not pushing to make small cars more of the norm? 1 or 2 seater cars. Similar to a SMART CAR, which i think is perfect for today's world. You can fit 2 smart cars in a parking space designed for 1 normal size car.

Simple - accident protection to the occupants and pedestrians requires the correct shapes and crumple zones that can't be engineered easily into a small car

Because as the price of gas goes down people want bigger cars.

First its hard to meet safety standards in small cars like smart cars. People want to feel safe but noone feels safe driving around in a car that size. Most people would switch to a smaller car if everyone else did but those same people don't want to be driving around in a car half the size of every elses for safety reasons.

Manufacturers get more money for bigger cars. Magazines get more ad money hyping bigger cars. People buy into the hype.

The big thing with "crush zones" is killing cars to "protect" the passengers. The Smart has a hard shell, like a walnut protecting it's nut. It is safer than any other small car.

IT'S All ABOUT THE MONEY.

They build what sells, for the most part. Little tin cans don't sell well or make much money.

The AVERAGE human is larger than they were 50 or even 25 years ago. They fit better in a larger car.

Cars have been getting bigger and heavier because of the addition of safety and convenience features. Compared with 20, 30, or 40 years ago, today's car have more basic features as well as additional safety features which all and mass to a vehicle. To make room for additional mass, you sometimes have to get bigger.
The other side of the coin is that you are much likelier to survive an accident and with fewer injuries in today's cars than you would in cars from years ago.

People are eating more. Also all the new technology takes up room so cars need to be larger to fit it all in.

There are two key reasons - safety and marketing.
Modern cars have a lot more space dedicated to keeping the effects of a collision minimised for both occupants and pedestrians. This means there's empty space immediately behind the front bumper fascia, and immediately under the bonnet, rather than hard objects that could injure a pedestrian, and extra width in the doors for side-impact protection, for example, adding length and width to the car.

The marketing issue is more questionable.
Generally when a manufacturer introduces a new model they want buyers moving from the old model to the new to see they are getting more for their money, and a common way of providing this is more legroom and more luggage space, but both of these usually mean the overall dimensions of a car increase. Multiply that over several generations, and you get to the point we're today where the current Polo is considerably larger than the first Golf, and close in size to the second Golf. This is partly driven by people getting larger, but more driven simply by wanting to offer a bit more than the outgoing car.

European governments don't see smaller cars as the answer - they'd prefer to get us out of our cars and onto public transport.

While cars often have only 1 person in them, most people don't have the luxury of having multiple cars available for different purposes, so have to use the same car for weekend family trips as they use for solo commuting, which is why the two-seat smart fortwo (no use for family outings) sells in relatively small numbers compared to the likes of the Volkswagen Golf and Polo and Ford Fiesta.