Oh, you misunderstand. Involving a car would most definitely not make it a better solution.

I have no interest whatsoever to involve cars in my life. Having to share the roads with them is bad enough. (The arrogance of space is ridiculous.)

Deliveries: these cost little because people aren't paid properly. If I wanted to pay them properly, I wouldn't be able to use their services much. So instead of normalizing exploitation in the name of convenience, I prefer not to use delivery services when it can be avoided. And with different supermarkets in almost every direction, within 10mins on foot they most definitely can be avoided. I don't mean to moralize, and I'll step right off this soap box, but keeping bad jobs alive is a disservice to my community.

More energy / more free time: neither the time nor the energy are wasted. If you want, you can see the time spent as an investment into health and focus, a tool for stress-reduction, an active period of mental rest, but really: this is not a zero sum game.

I don't think any of this will convince you, and I'm not trying to. But perhaps you can see that your view on the "best solution" is hardly universal and well-established alternatives exist that work for a surprisingly large number of people.

"virtue signalling"? Nobody even sees me doing this. Signalling to the squirrels?

Political reasons? You bet! Everything we do is political. We are /zoon politicon/. I do things the way I do them because I like it this way, and if by doing them this way I contribute to the mainstream leaning one lifestyle closer towards what I consider comfortable then: yes, this is all terribly political.

That reasoning illustrates the problem exactly. You should have read the article until the last line, I'll quote it here for you:

> That is our failure, and it's a failure brought about to a large extent by bad policy that tells us we can't have nice things, because nice things are for the rich

> and with different supermarkets in almost every direction, within 10mins on foot they most definitely can be avoided.

You do realize that this is just your privilege? Most of people don't have everything in the walking reach, some would have to bike up a hill for a few kilometers to get to a shop, etc?

Don't get me wrong, it's great that you can, but it's just a lucky consequence of where you live, not something that's universally applicable to everyone.

> You do realize that this is just your privilege?

This is exactly what TFA is about. It should not be a privilege, but it is, because we made it scarce. Not because it is more expensive to create, it is not.

> You do realize that this is just your privilege?

Yes, that's the point, though. This discussion thread is about walkable cities.

I should also point out that urban planning that gives priority to people who walk benefits everyone, independent of their income. This cannot be said for designs that give priority to cars.

What bikes have to do with walkable cities? IME the explosion of popularity of e-bikes, e-scooters, etc. made my own city only less enjoyable for walking, not more. IMHO if you want a walkable city it should be organized around pedestrians and efficient means of public mass-transport (trains, trams, electric busses), not bikes... and all I hear is a push for replacing cars with e-bikes...

I live in the Netherlands. Being able to walk to the supermarket in 10mins is very common. What you call privilege, we just call urban planning.

Good for you, I don't, and that's my whole point. What works for you wouldn't necessarily work for me, and not because we are savages incapable of urban planning, but because there are real challenges totally different than in Holland (geographical, economical, historical, cultural, etc.). Simply, what you call "urban planning" is way easier to do in a flat land and specific types of architecture, where cities where already built with planned street layouts, wide boulevards, etc. I happen to live in an old city with lots of narrow, one way streets, steep hill slopes, etc. and urban planning can get you only as far, without resorting to destroying historical neighborhoods just to make space for bike lanes. And btw my city is perfectly walkable, to make it clear, it's just not particularly bike friendly...

Anyway, my point being that IMHO it's not always a good idea to just try to copy/paste architectural and urbanistic solutions between regions with very different geography, culture and population density, no matter how trendy the idea is.

Walking for 10 minutes with an umbrella to the shop takes about the same effort as packing all this things into car and later unloading it and driving.

Or even less if shop is 300m away.

> Yeah and if you stopped doing that and instead used a car to buy your groceries or ordered them delivered to your doorstep, you would have more free time and more energy. People want free time and energy.

From my personal experience, I've found that doing physical exercise (paradoxically enough) seems to give me more energy. On those days where I've sat still all day I'm much more likely to feel like doing nothing after work, whereas when I've done my usual cycle commute I'm usually a lot more mentally alert. YMMV of course, but given the choice I'll personally rather do more than less physical exercise, even if it's small activities here and there like lugging some groceries.

Yeah but people should be free to use whatever form of physical exercise that they want. Should we never do any sports anymore and instead just force everyone to do inefficient transportation? That's just making life so much more poor.

Seems to me you’re the one insisting in doing something in the worst possible way.

I have a high street lined with shops on my way home where I can stop by, have a quick chat, perhaps pick up something that caught my attention as the scent of freshness overwhelmed my senses when I walked into the shop owned by a person that invites me for a drink and has visited my house socially.

The newest place near me right now was opened by an investment banker that chose to optimise for his hairline in his own words, so when I stop there to get stock up on exotic groceries, that is the best solution for me and if it’s raining, so what? I’ve got towels at home.