And this is mostly because we have designed our zoning and land use policies to favor big, centralized stores over lots of small, little ones.

An interesting parallel is Japan; Japan doesn't require parking with its properties, and to buy a car in Japan you have to produce proof of a parking space that you have (probably by purchasing a spot either with a property or in a lot somewhere), and the market has mostly sorted itself in favor of extremely dense networks of small shops.

The US used to have tons of small groceries everywhere. The legislative mandate for free parking everywhere has put them out of business, and many were demolished to build freeways.

Yeah, like most small stores they paid their staff less than the big supermarket, had worse selection and charged a lot more. The supermarket took over because they had better prices on better selection. It was nice to walk to the store for something you were missing that was common, but if you wanted to cook something exotic odds are they didn't have it, and so you switched most of your shopping elsewhere and mostly don't miss them.

Smaller groceries means more selection, not less, because each store can specialize instead of needing to suit the average expectation of everybody in a 5 mile radius.

I live in one of America's few dense cities, and there are three stores I visit often, one Kroger chain with the selection you'd expect, one latin grocery, and one asian grocery where I can get all kinds of stuff that most people in the suburbs who shop at walmart and safeway have never heard of, all within a 10 minute walk.

Come on, you don't have to be in one of the "few dense cities" to find an Indian, Asian, Latin, etc. grocery.

I live in a city of about 100K people, and there are plenty. Or a few miles away is a city of ~70K people with others. As well as non-chain organic markets, whatever. The suburbs are adjacent; that's what suburbs are.

I am in the northeast, are you a Californian or Texan?

If they specialize they can find a niche that the large players don't cover. I have seen a few markets that were not specialists. They had the same American food selection that everyone buys (obviously in different areas the exact selection is different, but within the region none). The same name brand spaghetti sauce (but only of the 2 name brands, not the 10 in a supermarket), onions, ground beef you buy in the large supermarkets today, but at higher costs.

The Kroger chain you visit killed all of the above (except for the gas station convenience stores which are a smaller version of the above)

Yes, but now the US has tons of supermarkets everywhere.

In the nearby major city I'm most familiar with, most of the grocery shopping you'd do would be in supermarkets--often Whole Foods some of which on the smaller side. Other than convenience stores, there are also some bakeries, produce stands, and butchers. But most of your shopping is probably going to be at supermarkets (which have parking).