That is a US thing. They even have a term for it: food desert.
As European it's hard to imagine a place where you cannot walk to a grocery store.
As European it's hard to imagine a place where you cannot walk to a grocery store.
I used to live in a 1920s era "streetcar suburb" neighbourhood. I lived on the third floor, and the ground level was a full (but small) grocery store. I never spent more than ~$50 at a time on groceries because I only bought for a couple days at a time.
The same decisions and laws that created the current system can be changed to take us back to the "norm" in the rest of the world.