And in all the places I lived in Canada, you'll have zoning laws that disallow grocery stores in housing developments. Even crazier: zoning laws that disallow bars in housing developments which means that you must drink and drive if you want to go to the bar and drink.

Here in Japan, 25 km gets me to the middle of the nearest big city (of about 700K people) from where I live. I have to go through 4 towns on the way. I live in a town of about 20K people and I can walk to 3 different grocery stores and any number of drinking establishments. North America seems so incredibly inconvenient to me these days.