I'm still curious where all these suburbs are that have nothing but houses for 3 miles or more?
Was trying to find some examples and looks like Mesa,AZ is the worst in this sense in the USA:
https://www.planetizen.com/node/92835/americas-largest-subur...
Looking at it in google maps it is indeed sprawling with houses. But I couldn't find a spot in the various neighborhoods where one would be more than 3 miles walk away from a supermarket. The worst I came up with was 2 miles to a supermarket. But then I zoomed in and saw a restaurant only 1 mile away.
Not a thorough research for sure, just spent a handful of minutes on it.
But assuming the article is correct and Mesa is the worst of the sprawl and given I didn't find it easy to find houses more than 3 miles away from (food) businesses, I'm thinking the OP statement that "In American suburbs it's typical for there to be nothing but houses within a 3 to 5 mile area" is quite an exageration.
Am I wrong? Can anyone name a handful of these neighborhoods?
That doesn't look like suburbs, although there are a handful of housing developments. But these are not in the outskirts of an urban area like a suburb, these are more rural and not attached to any city.
Yes, sure, once you go outside cities into semi-rural or rural regions, it's easy to be way more than 5 miles from shopping.
> there are two supermarkets within a 5 minute walking distance
That’s very nice and quite rare, especially for newer suburbs. Some of the older ones had a little Main Street or some grandfathered in stores and shops. Prices are extremely high accordingly compared with other suburbs.