http://maps.dcoz.dc.gov/zr16/#l=12&x=-8575451.094054567&y=47...

All the yellows and browns are residential zoned. And almost no mixed-use zoning. This makes your experience sound as if by design, not as nature would do it.

Well, looks like that regulation isn't great for stores. Here's the exceptions to residential units in the residential apartment zones:

https://dcregs.dc.gov/Common/DCMR/RuleList.aspx?DownloadFile...

Huh. 420.1.c explicitly bans corner stores. 420.1.g kind of looks like you can do a store under the apartment at least. This zoning map really doesn't look friendly to foot traffic.

My experience was as the OP, grocery stores I haven't even bothered to try yet within a 10 minute walk. This is the zoning map of Somerville.

http://3pb8cv933tuz26rfz3u13x17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-c...

It looks totally different, granted the scale is much different.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/zoning-maps.page

They appear to have each section of the map available as a PDF. I guess everyone just does it a little different. I'd expect NYC to be closer to Boston though since they're from the same era and both have limited area to spread and have a lot of grandfathered in buildings.

I'm a bit surprised DC is so segmented by land use, though I suppose it's a more recent city it's not as if 200 years is chump change. It seems like the zones are created and existing stuff gets exceptions carved out, and if they get torn down then they lose those exceptions and become the default type. So if buildings get destroyed quickly or if there's a lot of space for new construction I'd expect more simple separations between land use types.

The cities I've been in in those places are pretty much all as I described. Manhattan and Brooklyn are the only US places I know well. Those have lots of grocers, but are very expensive, which I chalked up the fact that everything in NYC is expensive.

It could be that this is just a difference in how American cities are laid out and regulated. I have noticed that when I'm in most other American cities they seem either very small at their core, or very car centric.

For example, Boston's historic core is incredibly small. Washington seems to be a ghost town during the evening, except in georgetown. Pittsburgh has a tiny core. Santa Monica was hard to walk instead with all the traffic lights at each block.

I haven't been in any of those places enough to have a definite view though, or at least I didn't grocery shop there.

Rereading your initial comment, I realized that all the cities I lived also had excellent mobility. You could bike or transit easily to any other part of town.

The corner stores were small and had limited selection, but had a decent produce selection, and the store closest to me had a daily meat delivery, so I could ask for pretty much any cut of meat and they'd have it for me the next day. I'd usually make a weekly trip to the full store for staples, and then stop by the corner store for daily needs.

But nowadays, proximity to grocery shopping is moot for me since I just shop online and have it delivered.

This is not true, unless you’re including Harlem and FiDi. Manhattan stores are pricy, I permit that, but that’s not for a lack of competition.

Have you ever lived in Manhattan?