In person shopping for groceries is solved by walking in many large European cities. If you rely on street parking, the shop is likely not much further than your car anyways.

Commutes can also be faster by public transit than by car, especially if start and destination are in the same city.

Delivery vehicles and trucks are probably the most difficult, but they're also major contributors to the noise and stink.

> timely commutes

Billions of people seem to have worked out how to do this on bicycles and public transport.

One of the big differences I’ve observed between the USA and Europe is the way cities are zoned: I didn’t realise until I actually went to America that SimCity 2000 is somewhat realistic with regard to Californian city design.

By comparison, my residential building here in Berlin has a restaurant and a café on the ground floor, a business office on the first floor, and the rest is residential, and even the parts of the city with houses rather than apartment blocks do similar things horizontally rather than vertically: house, house, kebabs, five houses, small supermarket, three houses, office.

Similarly in the UK, you’ll have domestic resistances above or next to shops and pubs and offices. Or next to (I’ve never seen them above) industrial buildings: workshops, factories, etc.