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Comment by polygamous_bat | Hacker News Reader

Because some people are social and have fun with other people.

We've never had social interaction before the modern city /s

Erm, you realise that before the “modern city”, every urban area was small and walkable, on account of the car not being invented.

The “modern city” or at least the US’s version of a “modern city” is the first time humans have ever lived so far apart at such scale. Enabled only because the car has conditioned so many people to think that driving 30mins to get anywhere interesting is “normal” or “natural”.

200 years ago 98% of humans were farmers and lived either on the farm or in a small village in walking distance of the farm. Todays cities are nothing like how people lived before modern days. If you were a substance farmer (as was your best case) you had about 5 acres of land - about what you get in the exurbs (though a modern exurb house is a lot bigger/nicer). If you were a slave (not unlikely) you lived in a very crowed boarding house with the other slaves on more land. Sure ancient Rome had 1 million people, but that was not the norm and even then most people were farmers in little villages not living in the city.

Even today a small “rural” town (which the census considers urban, mind you) can be quite the walkable paradise, if your demands for what is nearby are adjusted to be reasonable (say, a target OR a Walmart, but not both).

Maybe, but most of them are not large enough for a walmart. They might have a dollar general, which is just barely enough. The smaller ones don't even have a grocery store anymore. The towns that can support a walmart are large enough that you can't really live in walking distance of the walmart (which is often on the edge of town and far from anything else)

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