> a city like Cambridge will have small shops within walking distances of virtually all housing

I lived in Cambridgeport near Central Square in Cambridge, MA. There was indeed a small convenience store/variety shop almost within sight of my apartment. In six years, I bought something from them only once that I can recall. I used to walk quite literally past them to Whole Foods to save money. (When Whole Foods is killing you on price, you’re going to have a tough go of it.) Looking on Street View now, there’s paper over the windows and a notation of “permanently closed”.

I’m in a different neighborhood of Cambridge now. There are local shops here as well. Except for the food places, most are empty of shoppers almost all of the time. I don’t know what’s different to make these shops not particularly useful, but most purchasing seems to happen at the larger supermarkets and big box stores a few miles away (or online). Those have better selection, much better pricing, and are faster/more convenient in aggregate.

I don’t blame the local stores if they have to set uncompetitive prices due to rent or whatever other factors, but consumers also don’t have to buy products at uncompetitive prices.

For grocery shopping in Cambridge, I'd be some combination of Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and H-Mart. Yes, there are a few specialty markets and bakeries but those are almost certainly occasional things. CVS pharmacy. Maybe a hardware store if I need something routine and small. And restaurants of course. But besides buying consumables, mostly food and mostly at bigger chains, I'm not sure what all the small stores I'd be going into would be.

I remember when shopping meant visiting the butcher, bakery, fruit market, dairy. Then supermarkets were invented.

But everything that is old is new again. Now we shop at three different supermarkets! To get the best prices or quality or specialty item or whatever.

Maybe they'll invent a super-duper-market or something like that next, and we'll go back to a one-stop experience.

> Residential districts in China and many former Soviet countries. Big concrete blocks, with the bottom floor lined with small stores. They're absolutely delightful places to live.

That really isn’t true. At least in China, the most common living arrangement in big cities is the gated apartment complex, their might be some retail on floor one, but it is usually on the other side of the gate, and the gate you can enter or exit from is often not conveniently located to access that retail easily (given my experiences living in Beijing). If they did away with the fences/gates, things would be much more convenient.

I live in a rural/suburban town of a few thousand. There's a tiny "downtown" thing branching off the highway with a deli, convenience store, pizza place, and some other small stores. Whole town is only designed for cars besides some sidewalks in this downtown area, but you can bike around just fine if you're fit enough for hills or have an ebike. I have a single family home that's about a 10 minute bike ride from this downtown. Almost all homes are single family, and a lot of farms. I think this setup works great.

excellent comment!