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something a lot of people miss is, that some people have to shop for more than 3 or 4 people, when I grew up we were 5 plus a somewhat big dog, you can't really do weekly shopping without some kind of help under these circumstances
I use public transport to get everywhere I can, which is pretty easy where I live, but having 4 full shopping bags on a tram sounds like a horrible experience
People in countries and cities with good public transport don’t really do “weekly”. They stop in to the local market on the way home daily or every other day. There’s literally an express type grocery store every block or three, and a full serve store probably 10-15 minutes walk.
I spend a lot of time overseas for work, and getting groceries is without a car is zero trouble.
It tends to be much easier in walkable/well designed areas because you have a much higher density of grocery stores.
I have about 8 within a 2-10 minute walk. So I don't really do a big weekly shop, but rather a couple small ones throughout the week.
So yeah, depends hugely on how human-friendly the area is
Look at Mr Fancypants, with enough money to live in a desirable area and have enough time to go for strolls to the grocery store(s).
Seriously though, this is not the norm in the states.
I mean, there's a bunch of factors to this some social some geographical, but it turns out, the US has almost uniqiely bad design of towns and city with the auto-lobby holding a firm grip on their balls.
Literally every town or city in Europe is like this.
I'm not in a particularly desirable area... I'm also not in the US though.
A bug reason why the only desirable areas tend to be walkable in the US is just because there are so few.
If you promoted widespread walkable city-design, then prices will become more accessible to everyone. Even the poorest areas lf my city are super walkable, even moreso than many of the richer areas.
Which is why there's traffic
human-friendly as in you can live there in poverty or human-friendly as in it's great if you're middle class?
I mean, being poor sucks everywhere, but there's a lot of intermediate steps between dense well-designed city and car-centric hellhole. Arguably the latter is way worse if you can't afgord a car.
I actually live mostly surrounded by public housing! But I'm also not in the US...
The poorest part of my city is also the most densely populated and has an absolute shit-load of walkable grocery stores.
Just shop daily instead of weekly. A grocery store just opened three blocks from me so I just walk down with a single canvas bag and grab what I need for the next day or two. For the dog, we walk down to the pet store together to grab his food and a treat or toy for him.
Obviously not possible in many suburbs, but when you live in a walkable area it works great.
I hope I never end up in an American suburb.
Shopping daily sounds terribly inefficient. I don't even want to be at the store once per week, much less every single day.
It takes less than 15 minutes to do a shopping trip. 4 minutes by bike to get there, 4 minutes back. Time inside the store depends on how much stuff I need but usually not more than a few minutes, including self-checkout.
It's really minor when you just walk in and grab like... some vegetables for dinner. It's like a 5-10 minute detour.
Maybe you're right. I'm where I'm at, I drive about 10-12 minutes to get to a nice grocery store with decent prices where the parking lot won't be sketchy or crowded. But having one on my way as I'm walking to and from somewhere else would be pretty great. Most of the stores like that where I'm at are considered "concenience" stores, and the prices are wildly inflated there, so I never shop there unless I just want a drink or some junk food real quick.
As someone who loves cars and is cool with car culture, I do feel that it should be completely optional, and more walking based infrastructure and public transportation would be nice for everyone.
Sure. But one car ride a week to fulfill the daily needs of six living beeings doesn't cause congestion. What has this to do with anything?
If you live in more urban areas, you even don't need your own car for that.