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Comment by bcrosby95 | Hacker News Reader

> It's also an assumption that everyone wants to begin and end every trip, no matter how trivial, with a parking spot. It's an assumption that people will want to drive in traffic for 20 minutes minimum to get to a supermarket, do anything with their kids, or anything outside their property line.

I wouldn't be surprised to find some suburbs with some of the traits you mention, but it hasn't been my experience with them. I've lived in about 5 different suburbs in my life and a supermarket has never been more than 2 miles away - certainly not a 20 minute drive and it's even within biking distance. Parks are by schools and there's usually an elementary school fairly close if you're looking to do something with your kid. Depending upon the suburb you can also play in the street, which I regularly did growing up.

The traits you are talking about sounds more like a rural area than a suburban one.

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supermarket has never been more than 2 miles away - certainly not a 20 minute drive and it's even within biking distance

I'd consider that far, far away.

My walk to the nearest train station is about one mile, takes about 15 minutes to get there on foot, and that's irritatingly far, too, considering the trip is two way and repeats every day. Something like a grocery shop should be accessible within decent walking distance, a five-minute walk or so.

A rule of thumb is that if something is far enough that I have to take the car in the first place I'll be incentivised to drive further away to a big supermarket/other big stores while I'm at it.

> A rule of thumb is that if something is far enough that I have to take the car in the first place I'll be incentivised to drive further away to a big supermarket/other big stores while I'm at it.

The grocery store that’s 2 miles away is a big supermarket. The US doesn’t really do small groceries in most places.

The US used to have tons of small groceries everywhere. The legislative mandate for free parking everywhere has put them out of business, and many were demolished to build freeways.

Yeah, like most small stores they paid their staff less than the big supermarket, had worse selection and charged a lot more. The supermarket took over because they had better prices on better selection. It was nice to walk to the store for something you were missing that was common, but if you wanted to cook something exotic odds are they didn't have it, and so you switched most of your shopping elsewhere and mostly don't miss them.

Smaller groceries means more selection, not less, because each store can specialize instead of needing to suit the average expectation of everybody in a 5 mile radius.

I live in one of America's few dense cities, and there are three stores I visit often, one Kroger chain with the selection you'd expect, one latin grocery, and one asian grocery where I can get all kinds of stuff that most people in the suburbs who shop at walmart and safeway have never heard of, all within a 10 minute walk.

Come on, you don't have to be in one of the "few dense cities" to find an Indian, Asian, Latin, etc. grocery.

I live in a city of about 100K people, and there are plenty. Or a few miles away is a city of ~70K people with others. As well as non-chain organic markets, whatever. The suburbs are adjacent; that's what suburbs are.

I am in the northeast, are you a Californian or Texan?

If they specialize they can find a niche that the large players don't cover. I have seen a few markets that were not specialists. They had the same American food selection that everyone buys (obviously in different areas the exact selection is different, but within the region none). The same name brand spaghetti sauce (but only of the 2 name brands, not the 10 in a supermarket), onions, ground beef you buy in the large supermarkets today, but at higher costs.

The Kroger chain you visit killed all of the above (except for the gas station convenience stores which are a smaller version of the above)

Yes, but now the US has tons of supermarkets everywhere.

In the nearby major city I'm most familiar with, most of the grocery shopping you'd do would be in supermarkets--often Whole Foods some of which on the smaller side. Other than convenience stores, there are also some bakeries, produce stands, and butchers. But most of your shopping is probably going to be at supermarkets (which have parking).

And this is mostly because we have designed our zoning and land use policies to favor big, centralized stores over lots of small, little ones.

An interesting parallel is Japan; Japan doesn't require parking with its properties, and to buy a car in Japan you have to produce proof of a parking space that you have (probably by purchasing a spot either with a property or in a lot somewhere), and the market has mostly sorted itself in favor of extremely dense networks of small shops.

American in Texas here - maybe this is a behavior encouraged by the very thing we're discussing, but going to the grocery store _every day_ is a big yikes to me. I go once a week and get everything I need for that week. Because I take my car, I can carry that amount of stuff.

It all just ties together. Going to the grocery store every day is a big yikes because you can't walk around the block to pick up fresh produce for dinner

I live a 2 min walk from a grocery store and no way in hell I’d want to go there everyday.

Yeah, I live a block from my grocery store in SF, and I still only go 1-2 times a week unless I need something fresh for today / missing ingredient, which is rare since I plan ahead and only buy things that will last at least a few days.

Living in a dense city like SF is great for somethings, but it sucks when you want to leave, and paying almost $400/month for parking isn't good either. Both lifestyles have their advantages and I think it really comes out to personal taste and choice.

Which has turned out to be a really great habit to have now that going to the grocery store regularly is pretty unsafe.

pre-covid I stopped by the grocery store almost every day to pick up whatever I wanted for dinner.

Back when I lived across the street from a grocery store I'd sometimes go get food for dinner, talk a bit with guests for what we wanted for desert, then walk over and pick up whatever we'd decided on. When the grocery store is across the street it is basically an on-demand food pantry.

When a grocery store is very nearby and you go to the grocery store, you can get your produce fresher. And you don't have to plan your meals, which may or may not be a positive side (it is for me).

Check out this Canadian talking about his grocery trip in Amsterdam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk.

You can't get your produce fresher if you are walking, unless the current temperature just happens to be a few degrees above freezing.

In much of the USA, your produce would freeze and thus become mush.

In much of the USA, temperatures well above 90 degrees would wilt your produce. Also, all your frozen food would be ruined.

Err, no? I live in Montreal, I've carried produce and other kinds of food by bike or by walk in -30C to +40C weather. It doesn't take so long that your food becomes damaged.

If you're carrying frozen food, we have bags with insulation and reflective foil on the inside. Put your frozen food there and even in +40C weather it will take much more than 15 minutes to thaw. Besides, buses and obviously the metros are acclimatized to a temperature of more or less 25C.

It really is just a non-issue. I assure you your produce are left outside for more than 20 minutes. There is no impact at all on freshness, and walkable cities promote smaller grocery stores that tend to have fresher food.

It's remarkable to see people so detached from their natural origins to believe produce will freze or spoil when extracted from the supermarket and exposed to the outside world for a few minutes. Unless you are living at the North-Pole and need to walk more than half an hour in arctic blizzards, there is physically no way your food can freeze on the way back from the supermarket.

Food grows outside, in direct sunlight, exposed to scorching heat or near-freezing temperatures. Most of the plant based food is still living in the shelf when you purchase it, and has imune systems to fight-off bacteria and the like that would otherwise colonize it. The only concern are products of animal origin in the heat, but even the most sensitive like refrigerated fresh fish, still needs at least a few hours in hot weather before they can become problematic.

Going once a week is efficient, but a little difficult to match up to a diet full of fresh fish, fruits, & vegetables.

When grocery shopping frequently, you're also going for five or ten minutes instead of two hours, and the grocery is probably on your way home.

> Going once a week is efficient, but a little difficult to match up to a diet full of fresh fish, fruits, & vegetables.

This has never been a problem for me. Many fresh fruits and vegetables will easily last for a week in your refrigerator (some for longer), and fresh fish or meat can be frozen for later use. Fruits such as berries that degrade rapidly can be eaten first, and fruits that last longer, such as apples or oranges, can be eaten later. Fruits like peaches or avocados can also be bought in varying states of ripeness, which means that different ones could achieve ripeness over the course of a week.

I lived in Dallas for a long time, at my last house a Whole Foods, a "neighborhood" Walmart and a Trader Joes popped up pretty much equidistant (7 minute walk) from my house. It is quite pleasant, actually, to walk to the grocery store and get groceries for that night's dinner. Since then I've always lived within a 10 minute walk and generally get one to two (paper) sacks of groceries two or three times a week, sometimes more often. Temptation to snack is drastically reduced as we only have 2 days of food in the house.

Milan, Italy, here. I can reach 4 supermarkets in at most 10 minutes, walking from my home. Of course I never go there by car, it would take more time. Probably it's the same in many areas of NYC or SF (been there some 20 years ago.) But if you move into the suburbs or away from the largest cities even Italy it's a cars only country. Sure, every small town has its elementary school, parks and play areas but you can't live without a car.

> Of course I never go there by car

Do you carry your groceries, or have like a cart? I always end up with several trips to my car worth of groceries to last a week.

Because grocery stores (and specialized stores such as butchers or farmers markets etc.) are more accessible, people in cities often buy only a few meals of ingredients at a time. It's easy to stop by a store and pick up some some amount of fresh whatever as you go about your day.

Everywhere I've lived so far, I could reach several supermarkets in a 10 minute walk. 2 miles is much too far for elderly people to walk.

Do you predominantly walk, bike, or drive to your sub-2mi supermarket?

Before covid we walked more often than we drove, but got most of our stuff from driving.

Driving for the bulk, walking for the random stuff we needed.

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