I wonder what you are supposed to do when you have bigger errands to run. Buying groceries for a family for whole week, get new furniture, going on vacation trip, etc.
I mean, yeah, it's great that you have everything necessary within walking distance, but sometimes you simply need to make larger trips...
I feel like there should be some kind of middle-ground...
That's the thing: when your grocery store is a short walk away, you don't buy groceries for the whole week. You just duck into the store on the walk home or you walk over at lunch. You buy things for that evening or a few days at most. Having to plan for a whole week of meals seems normal to us, but it's an adaptation to the fact that we live too far from grocery stores. With our large fridges, cabinets, pantries, and chest freezers, we basically turn part of our homes into well-stocked convenience stores so that we can go out as little as possible.
A lie. I have literally my entire adult life lived walking distance from the grocery store and I've even walked to the grocery store and I have always shopped weekly. Being able to cook daily is a luxury of time and energy. I don't bulk buy, but I definitely only have a weekly pit stop. It's not as cumbersome as the person you're replying to thinks. A week of groceries is only like 3 shopping bags, but still it doesn't make financial sense to go grocery shopping literally every day. Buying tiny amounts of groceries just doesn't make much sense with how things are sold, especially if you're a single person.
Having a grocery store a short distance away is not contingent on eliminating cars. However, modern grocery stores are massive. An increase in clusters that service smaller areas would necessitate smaller stock. We have convenience stores of course, but what do people buy there? Junk. If they're all specialized, then it means more stops and consequently more time invested in daily grocery runs.
I don't think this is a common setup for any developed country with 2 income households. Likely the daily-run for groceries occurs in areas where women are homemakers. Is that part of the pitch? There's no way we're going back to that, or daily grocery runs.
Every major city I’ve ever been to in the US, Germany, Portugal, Spain, etc. all had smaller grocery stores that sold real produce. It’s very common, not a big deal. And it doesn’t require women to be homemakers, good lord.
I'm aware of some of those in major cities. Produce does not constitute the whole of one's daily diet (overwhelmingly). Hence, specialization.
Also, having these small produce-oriented grocers does not imply that people are doing daily runs. In my city I only see them in posh, upscale neighborhoods. In some larger metropolises like NY I've seen them also in less gentrified places, but they tend also to be specialty stores.
Groceries in cities sell meat and bread, etc often too, they’re no different than normal grocery stores, just not as big as a supercenter.. I feel like you’re overcomplicating this due to lack of familiarity. And sure, maybe you don’t go to the grocery store literally every day. Maybe you get two or three days worth, what’s comfortable to hold or to push in a cart. Sometimes you order takeout. This is normal stuff in places that aren’t rural areas where the only option is to drive 5-10 miles to a grocery store.
They're a fraction of the size. If average weekly needs and wants were met by those, that's where people in those neighborhoods would shop all the time. Everything else would be redundant. But instead they seem to fill a missing middle.
> maybe you don’t go to the grocery store literally every day.
Chicago, NYC, Lisbon, Berlin, Barcelona, etc. They all have their versions of these stores. You don't need to go anywhere else unless you want to for some reason.
Lots of us do that in the suburbs too. I live close enough to walk, just over 1/2 mile, to a Safeway but usually choose to drive out of convenience. I’m at that store nearly everyday, sometimes multiple times if I forgot something or need something else.
Part of the implication is that your habits would change with different transportation - for example a fairly common response about groceries is buying them in smaller quantities every few days at the (likely smaller and/or more specialized) grocer convenient to your home or transit stop; renting a truck or cargo van to self move furniture as needed if you can’t get it professionally moved (which probably isn’t a bad idea even if you do primarily use a car!); renting a car for a road trip or being able to use transit to get there instead; that kind of thing.
The issue is that habits only change so much, because people are reluctant to give up all of the convenience of personal transportation just for the sake of "going car-free".
For example, not havig a car is fine until your place of work is 10km out and using public transportation takes 1h whereas driving by car takes 10 minutes. Taking a bike or e-bike works, of course, unless it's raining or snowing or stormy, in which case you really want a fully enclosed (and heated) ride.
I'm sure you can find some "but in that case just do X" for all those cases, but the point still stands that all these issues only exist because you ditched the car, even if it's just a small electric one.
Designing a city/suburb/community that outright bans cars (by not providing any parking spaces) only works for a very small minority of the population
You buy groceries more frequently as it's more convenient to stop in on your evening walk or bike ride.
Bulky purchases are relatively rare and can be accomplished by delivery service, renting a van, or using a cargo bike (one of which makes groceries and transporting small children easier as well).
Vacations - rent a car, take the train, etc.
Anyways, few people want to outright ban cars. Look at the Netherlands - most families still have a car, it just doesn't get used daily. It's a convenience instead of a necessity. Maybe they use it to commute, but not to take kids to school or run small errands.
The average cost of owning a car in the US is around $10,000/year. Even the ability to cut from 2 cars to 1 car (for a typical family with two working adults) is a MASSIVE economic benefit.
> You buy groceries more frequently as it's more convenient to stop in on your evening walk or bike ride.
There are efficiencies both in terms of time and money that come from bulk shopping that you’re not considering.
I lived car free for about 5 years in Seattle and it fucking sucked walking to the grocery store every day or two. In the winter it rains frequently so my groceries would always be wet by the time I got home which added even more time to dry everything off.
And I'm not claiming car-free is a panacea. I just want to stop subsidizing car-based infrastructure to the extent that we do.
Hell, we still own two cars for convenience (though I walk to work and my wife rides a bike). Though when the next car ages out, we'll probably trade it for an electric cargo bike.
as I understood it, culdesac doesn't even provide parking for your car, and parking your car 5 miles away is the same as not having a car at all (at least when it comes to vacation, family visits, larger purchases, etc.)
I mean, yeah, it's great that you have everything necessary within walking distance, but sometimes you simply need to make larger trips...
I feel like there should be some kind of middle-ground...