I live in a small town but in a very spread out relatively densely populated country. Still with the closing of the old bakery and little grocery store due to the people who ran it retiring I have to go to a nearby city or supermarkets on the outskirts for stuff.

I'm not saying this out of spite or annoyance because of that. It's not that far. Hell i'm even moving soon. But I do see it for what it was. A good thing to have around. It made for local economic activity, it had locals meeting up and having talks there, not driving all the way out if they were missing something minor and very local events were advertised there. There's no reason, 0, nada to do spatial planning to purposefully have people driving more and longer. It's not good for the environment, it's not good for the people, economically, what have you. If you love driving you can do so without a reason. And no by advocating for having spatial planning that allows for local small stores people aren't pushing for everyone to live in a big city either.